Delaware's Betting Sports System system yet to take shape

Delaware's Betting Sports System system yet to take shape
By Frank Fitzpatrick
Philadelphia Inquirer Staff Writer
Even last week, as Gov. Jack Markell signed the enabling legislation in a Delaware Park VIP lounge, in front of a giant video scoreboard that listed odds on all that day's sporting matchups, few in the state were willing to bet on just how Delaware's new sports-wagering system might work.
"The shape it will take, that's not really clear at this point," said Corey Morowitz, an Atlantic City-based gambling consultant who has advised Delaware.
Will it be a football pool-type lottery like the one that flopped in Delaware in 1976? Will bettors be allowed to wager on single sporting events, in casino-style luxury, as they can in Las Vegas? Or will they be restricted to parlays - single bets on two or more events - as is the case in several Canadian provinces?
No one will know until Delaware's Supreme Court, which is scheduled to begin deliberations on the issue this week, rules on the issue.
But in the excitement generated by the legislature's decision to recommence sports wagering after a three-decades-plus absence, supporters said they favored a system that would approximate the Las Vegas sports-book experience - point spreads, single-game wagers, and all the amenities a casino can provide.
Officials at Delaware Park, the northernmost of the state's three racetrack-slot casinos - racinos - said discussions with their customers has convinced them a Las Vegas-style system is the way to go.
"These people tell us they'd be more inclined to make a straight bet, say, putting $100 against the spread on the Eagles over the Giants," said Andrew Gentile, general manager of Delaware Park, "than play some sort of parlay or lottery-type game."
Thirty-three years ago, when cash-starved states everywhere began exploring gambling's revenue potential and when the only legal option here was a bet on a mediocre horse race, Delaware, over the loud objections of the NFL, instituted a sports lottery.
Bettors were required to pick the outcomes of multiple football games, just as they would in an office pool. But the odds were high and the public's interest low. When a few state-set point spreads were so wildly out of line that they threatened to bankrupt the system, the brief experiment was discarded like a losing ticket.
The door to sports gambling was left open when, in 1992, a federal ban on the practice grandfathered in the four states - Delaware, Nevada, Oregon and Montana - where it remained legal.
Throughout the years there was occasional talk about reviving sports gambling, but it was only in the last few years, as the nation's second smallest state faced a big-state budget deficit, that the sleeping giant was reawakened.
Markell, whose first budget is projected to be nearly $800 million in the red, recently signed into law a measure that once again permits sports betting in the First State. (The legislation also permits table games at the state's three racinos, the details of which will be determined by a commission.)
Predictably, politicians, gamblers and Delaware's racino operators hailed the move as a financial panacea for the state as well as a necessary salvo in an ever-escalating gambling war with Mid-Atlantic neighbors Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Maryland.
"I think if you polled the people in our industry and our customers, the closer we get to what Las Vegas does, the better it will be for everyone involved," said Ed Sutor, CEO of Dover Downs, a harness track.
If the court rejects single-game bets, however, most observers believe the next most likely scenario would be parlay bets, a system expert predict would generate far less revenue.
Still, regardless of the court's decision, Philadelphia-area sports bettors who make the trip south on I-95 should discover a small-scale version of a Vegas sports book whenever the system gets rolling, presumably in time for the fall start of the 2009 NFL season.
At Delaware Park, Dover Downs, and Harrington Raceway, they will find complexes that offer upscale accommodations, entertainment, food options that range from snack bars to gourmet meals, and plush sports books equipped with odds boards, trained cashiers, and scores of TVs tuned into games across the globe.
"We've got all the technology in place," said Gentile, the Delaware Park GM. "We can be up and running whenever the state wants to start."
Whatever form the sports gambling takes, operators said, the racinos won't have to invest heavily in new infrastructure.
All three already have race books, where bettors can watch and wager on horse races and jai-alai matches. A few more cashiers, some additional training, a couple more flat-screen TVs, and maybe an additional snack bar or restaurant, and they said they'll be ready to go.
"We've got more than 200 TVs and video boards already," said Gentile. "And we've got all the other amenities in place too."
Dover, which because of the economy recently scrapped plans for a $50 million addition that could have been used for a sports book and table games, will convert a now-empty, 7,500-square-foot restaurant on its site into a combined facility for sports and racing bettors.
"That will be plenty large enough most of the time," said Sutor. "But we don't know what will happen during those events that typically pack the books in Vegas, like Super Bowl weekend or the start of the NCAA tournament."
Sutor and Gentile both said they hoped the lingering sports-betting questions would be resolved in time for the 2009 NFL season this fall.
The state's Supreme Court, which was asked to intervene by Markell, already has begun accepting legal briefs from Wilmington law firms on both sides of the issue.
The NFL again has publicly come out against sports wagering in the state and recently filed an opponent's brief with the court. League spokesman Brian McCarthy said that in terms of the opposition it might mount "nothing had been ruled out."
The league contends bets on its games are illegal under Delaware law because they require skill instead of chance. That distinction is a significant one.
In 1977, the NFL sued Delaware to try to halt the gambling scheme. The Supreme Court approved the lottery system, noting that the enacting legislation allowed chance-based wagers. However, it said single-game wagers were not permitted because, in its opinion, those required an element of skill, something the law prohibited.
That reasoning has single-game proponents optimistic.
"Back then the court's ruling noted that when Jimmy the Greek picked games even up, he was right 75 percent of the time," said Sutor. "But when he picked winners using a point spread, his success rate fell to 50 percent. Well, we believe 50 percent is a chance bet."
Regardless of the outcome, Delaware, the only state east of the Mississippi where sports gambling is permitted, should find itself with a monopoly in a heavily populated, gambling-savvy region.
"We already draw from several markets - Delaware, Southeast Pennsylvania, southern New Jersey, and Baltimore-D.C.," said Ray Spera, Delaware Park's senior vice president. "We would expect that sports betting would give us a deeper penetration in all of those areas."
Oregon, which had a sports lottery, dropped it in 2006 after the NCAA threatened to prohibit any of its tournaments from being played there.
The NCAA could penalize Delaware in much the same way, a move that could seriously impact the University of Delaware.
Delaware athletic director Edgar Johnson said the school has remained neutral on the sports-betting issue because it collects a sizable portion of its revenue from the state.
But, Johnson said, it would be "wrongheaded" for the NCAA to penalize the school's student-athletes for a situation over which they have no control.
"Our football team has been in two national championship games in the last five years," he said. "They've had several playoff games at home. We've hosted national lacrosse playoffs, and we're making a bid now to hold a national volleyball tournament at the Carpenter Complex.
"If all that is taken away because Delaware has legalized sports betting, it would not only hurt our student-athletes but have a serious impact on our entire athletic program."
Not surprisingly, estimates on how much revenue sports gambling would generate for the state vary widely.




Delaware's Betting Sports System system yet to take shape