Legalized Sports Betting Would Mean $30.6 Billion for U.S. Economy
Submitted by C. Costigan
There is much talk this week about legalizing online gambling and in particular sports betting, which would account for a $30.6 billion figure as part of a PriceWaterHouseCoopers 2007 industry forecast. Another 21.4 billion in revenue would be generated from legalized online poker and Internet casino gambling, respectively.
"This analysis further illustrates that the U.S. is missing the opportunity to collect billions of dollars in federal revenues," said Jeffrey Sandman, spokesman for the Safe and Secure Internet Gambling Initiative. "We are optimistic that the Obama Administration and Congress will pay closer attention to this issue as they seek to find new revenues that can be generated without raising taxes for critical federal, state and local government programs. Regulation is also needed to ensure there are safeguards to protect against compulsive and underage gambling, money laundering, fraud and identity theft."
A handful of states are looking to legalize online sports betting including Delaware, New Jersey, New York and Florida while others are seeking to have online poker legalized including California and quite possibly Texas now. Gambling911.com was unaware of any states looking to legalize both activities together.
California, facing an economic crisis, will be holding a poker summit on May 19 and 20. A bill related to legalized online poker in California was anticipated to be introduced in the coming weeks.
That state alone is estimated to have 1.5 million poker players.
Legalized Sports Betting Would Mean $30.6 Billion for U.S. Economy
Saturday, February 28, 2009
Betting Sports: Ace in the “Hole” has a Gambling Tradition
Betting Sports: Ace in the “Hole” has a Gambling Tradition
By Jake Nichols
Jackson Hole, Wyoming.-It’s a scene synonymous with the Old West: Swinging doors leading to a smoke-filled saloon decked with card tables and roulette wheels. Gambling, at least in the wild west myth, goes good with whiskey, whores and Wyoming.
Jackson Hole has a rich gambling tradition – mostly illegal. Tall tales of covert casinos and basement blackjack lasting through the 1970s are largely true. It seems, perhaps, the moral opposition, with its warning of societal decay have often trumped local interests in 50 years of gambling debate. But with a recession looming and government budgets busting, serious talk of legalizing forms of gambling is making its way through legislation.
Last year, states raked in $20 billion in revenue from gambling operations.
If Wyoming’s energy industry continues to sag, could the Cowboy State once again roll the dice? If so, how long before Teton Village sports a brand new casino, or the roulette wheel spins again at the Silver Dollar Bar?
Jackson’s Hole gambles
Through the latter half of the 1800s, Wyoming was a mere territory. Railroad ruffians, miners and miscreants packed Cheyenne bars and back alleys with games of chance: poker, keno, faro, ‘lambskinnet,’ roulette and dice. Bets were placed on anything from boxing matches and dog fights to foot races and horse races.
“Gambling is an inherent attribute of the human heart. Show me the man who will not gamble in some way, and I will show you an imbecile,” Crook County Rep. Tom Hooper said in 1888.
So infectious was the disease, the Wyoming Stock Growers Association adopted a resolution in 1885, outlawing gambling during roundups so ranchers wouldn’t be tempted to “lose the herd on the flip of a hole card.”
Eventually, state legislators acquiesced to the growing number of churches and women in the new ‘civilized’ West with the McGill Act, officially outlawed gambling in Wyoming in 1901.
During the Great Depression, a number of gambling proposals were brought before state legislatures, but Wyoming failed to go all in.
“In 1935, Wyoming almost became a Nevada,” said Phil Roberts, a professor and member of the University of Wyoming’s History Department. “A bill legalizing full casino gambling passed both houses on the last day of the legislative session, only to be vetoed by Gov. Leslie Miller.”
The way it was
Historian Jack Huyler, in his book “And That’s the Way It Was in Jackson’s Hole,” remembers witnessing a huge money bet once in the late 1930s. A nursing convention was in town. One of the nurses walked into the Log Cabin Saloon and straight up to the roulette wheel. She plunked $1,000 down on ‘red’ without a word to anyone. “We all held our breath,” Huyler said. The marble fell in ‘red’ and she walked out with the winnings, never to be seen by locals again.
In 1933, a disgruntled gamer named Wilbur Woodrow sued Charles and Jesse Wort and Otto Johns for running a speakeasy, retail liquor business and gambling house out of the Wort Livery Stable in Jackson during Prohibition. Woodrow was allegedly pistol-whipped by the defendants for his meddling.
The Wort Hotel and Log Cabin Saloon led the way with illegal gambling through the 1940s and 1950s. In full flaunt of the law, slot machines could be found the lobby of The Wort, with poker blackjack, roulette, and craps in the bar/casino. Even Jackson mayor Harry Clissold could often be found at the card tables.
Local historian Charles Craighead wrote in his historical book, “Meet Me at The Wort,” that gambling in the early days was just for fun:
“Gambling was a pastime, a form of entertainment to help friends pass the long, severe winters. A poker game could last all night with only a few dollars changing hands, and by spring most IOUs were either torn up or worked off,” Craighead wrote.
Things began to change in the mid-1950s when professional dealers and other associates of the Las Vegas gaming industry began moving into the Jackson Hole market. Complaints of marked decks and rigged machines were common but no one seemed to mind as long as it was the tourists getting ripped off. And everyone was in on it.
Teton County Attorney Wilford Neilson frequently tipped off bar manager Steve Bartek (The Wort) to any impending raids planned by state officials. Then-Sheriff Olin Emery would often help load slot machines into waiting trucks.
The winning ticket
The recent Wyoming House Bill 170 was not the first attempt at joining the Powerball lottery. A similar bill failed in 2007, though the nonpartisan Legislative Service Office estimated that a lottery in Wyoming could generate $12 million in annual revenue.
Lotteries, historically, have commonly been viewed as an acceptable way to raise money for building projects without raising taxes. The 13 original colonies used lotteries to raise revenue and to establish colleges, churches, libraries and hospitals. But lotteries had largely turned into swindles by the 1800s.
“Lottery King” James Pattee set up fraudulent lotteries in at least four states before moving to Laramie and establishing the nationwide Wyoming Lottery in 1875. He made $7 million in the first year alone by advertising in the New York Herald. He skedaddled to Canada two years later, never paying out more than 50 cents for a $100,000 grand prize drawing. As a consequence, Wyoming outlawed lotteries in 1879, as did most states by 1900.
The era of the modern state lottery began in 1964 in New Hampshire. New York and New Jersey soon followed with their own state lotteries. By 1998, every continental state without a lottery bordered at least one state with one, making out-of-state lottery gambling a hot ticket.
Gambling craps out
By 1951, the slots were gone at The Wort, but open gambling remained and Jackson’s notoriety became too big to ignore. After Fortune magazine listed Jackson as the second toughest town in the U.S., Gov. Milward Simpson had had enough.
In 1955, pressure from Cheyenne drove the gaming tables underground (Patrons had to supply a password for the basement casino dubbed the “Snakepit”). And Simpson became further incensed when a photograph in Salt Lake City’s Deseret News revealed a local man dealing blackjack at the Log Cabin Saloon.
Gov. Simpson instructed Neilson to impeach Sheriff Emery. Neilson would not. Simpson sent the state Attorney General to Jackson. He threatened the National Guard would move in next and clean out the town. Emery finally resigned and four liquor licenses were suspended.
But it didn’t end there. The Wort continued to offer gambling on the QT, moving games around covertly from the basement to various hotel rooms in town and as far away as the Flat Creek Ranch. When the brothers John and Jess Wort sold the hotel in 1960, the new owner attempted to revive the gambling big time, but by 1961, gambling in Jackson was all but played out.
Despite changing attitudes since, Wyoming lawmakers and voters have continually defeated attempts loosen the reins on gambling, including a 1994 ballot initiative that would have allowed full-fledged casinos.
The losing ticket
One of Wyoming HB 170s main obstacles was Eric Spector, president and CEO of Wyoming Downs, the state’s only horseracing facility.
In an apparent attempt to placate Spector, HB 170 included the installation of 1,000 lottery gaming machines at his facility in Uinta County, effectively creating one more of the fastest-growing gambling facilities in the country – a ‘racino.’ That move was a deal breaker for Gov. Dave Freudenthal.
“I have said in the past that I would support a ‘clean’ lottery bill that allowed the state to join multi-state lotteries like Powerball,” Freudenthal told Planet JH. “My concern about this bill is that it really isn’t a lottery bill, it’s a gambling bill.”
Rep. Keith Gingery, R-Jackson, said he also liked the idea of the bill as it pertained to joining a multi-state lottery, but didn’t care much for the fact that the proceeds of the bill would have gone to the Hathaway Scholarship Program. He felt the program would be somewhat tainted if its budget relied on how many people played the lottery.
A Casper Star-Tribune poll in 2007, meanwhile, showed more than half of Wyoming voters support a lottery. Retailers admitted to losing customers who crossed state lines in order to buy lottery tickets. The bill was expected to generate $11 million a year for the Hathaway Scholarship fund.
HB 170 died Feb. 16 on a 35-25 vote.
“I don’t see Wyoming moving anytime in the future toward legalized gambling,” Gingery told Planet JH.
Jackson Holed ‘em
Jackson’s gambling routes can still be seen today. The recent Cutter Races feature “Calcutta” wagering along with trackside dollar bets. Calcutta betting is a type of auction-pool wagering covered in the 6-7-101 section of the Wyoming Statutes labeled “Gambling.” Bettors ‘purchase’ a team or contestant of an amateur event like horse/dog racing, rodeo, or golf. Calculttas are considered legal in Wyoming so long as certain stipulations are met, most notably the payout of at least 10 percent of the pot to “a bona fide charitable or benevolent purpose.”
This weekend’s 113th annual 49er Ball will include games of chance. Blackjack and poker will be available and legal because no money is involved. Chips can be cashed in for prizes, thereby eliminating any real profits for the “house.” Common door prizes and raffle prizes are also considered legal in the state of Wyoming.
Bingo is regulated at the state level. Numerous criteria must be met to make the event legal. The popular “Bingo Night” at the Elk’s Lodge is also licensed by the Town of Jackson.
The recent proliferation in and around town of card play, including ‘poker night,’ stems from both the popularity of poker ‘as scene on TV’ and a relaxation of certain state gaming and liquor laws in the past few years.
“It used to be that an establishment could not directly or indirectly profit in any way from a card game or other form of gambling,” said Tom Montoya, chief of enforcement at the Wyoming Liquor Division. “So, just selling these guys a beer or burger was in violation of the law.”
Today, bars that hold poker tournaments like Town Square Tavern, Camp Creek, and Nora’s are legit, as long as the house does not take a cut of the pot or charge a cover or entry fee. All gaming must take place in a room that is not the dispensing room and events like “Texas Hold ‘em Night” cannot be advertised.
“Social gaming between buddies or members of a club is okay,” Montoya said. “A lot of these guys have probably stretched it a little, but, technically, the guys at the table are required to know each other.”
Where else can you lose your wad?
Wyoming has one horserace track – Wyoming Downs, located outside of Evanston. Off-track betting parlors in Cheyenne, Evansville, Rock Springs, Rawlins offer racing simulcasts and legal betting on races. Wyoming Downs is regulated by the Wyoming Pari-Mutuel Commission, which leagalized gambling on horse and dog races in 1969.
Wyoming is also home to three full-scale casinos. The Wind River Casino is owned and operated by the Northern Arapaho Tribe. It is the largest and newest casino in the state – for now. Located just south of Riverton, the casino is a mile south of the tribe’s former site, 789 Bingo, which continues to operate as a smaller smoke shop and casino.
On Sept. 1, an unidentified Worland-area gambler at Wind River Casino hit a jackpot of nearly $390,000, one of the casino’s biggest recorded jackpots, according to staff. Wind River Casino policy prohibits identifying jackpot winners.
The Shoshone Rose, owned and operated by the Eastern Shoshone Tribe, is seven miles north of Lander on the Wind River Reservation. The 7,000 square foot Vegas-styled casino opened in September 2007. The Eastern Shoshone have also purchased 300 acres eight miles north of Riverton along the highway. Tribal leaders hope to build the biggest complex yet, complete with a hotel, restaurant and entertainment venue.
Casinos on reservation land became legal in 1988 when Congress passed the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act in response to court cases in Florida and California. The act allowed federally recognized American tribes to own and operate casinos on federal land. However, revenue generated from reservation casinos is not taxable by the State of Wyoming. Casino spokespeople say their establishments provide for the economic welfare of tribal members and the local economy, through jobs and peripheral spending. The state unsuccessfully sued to stop the Northern Arapahoe’s first casino in 2000.
Betting Sports: Ace in the “Hole” has a Gambling Tradition
By Jake Nichols
Jackson Hole, Wyoming.-It’s a scene synonymous with the Old West: Swinging doors leading to a smoke-filled saloon decked with card tables and roulette wheels. Gambling, at least in the wild west myth, goes good with whiskey, whores and Wyoming.
Jackson Hole has a rich gambling tradition – mostly illegal. Tall tales of covert casinos and basement blackjack lasting through the 1970s are largely true. It seems, perhaps, the moral opposition, with its warning of societal decay have often trumped local interests in 50 years of gambling debate. But with a recession looming and government budgets busting, serious talk of legalizing forms of gambling is making its way through legislation.
Last year, states raked in $20 billion in revenue from gambling operations.
If Wyoming’s energy industry continues to sag, could the Cowboy State once again roll the dice? If so, how long before Teton Village sports a brand new casino, or the roulette wheel spins again at the Silver Dollar Bar?
Jackson’s Hole gambles
Through the latter half of the 1800s, Wyoming was a mere territory. Railroad ruffians, miners and miscreants packed Cheyenne bars and back alleys with games of chance: poker, keno, faro, ‘lambskinnet,’ roulette and dice. Bets were placed on anything from boxing matches and dog fights to foot races and horse races.
“Gambling is an inherent attribute of the human heart. Show me the man who will not gamble in some way, and I will show you an imbecile,” Crook County Rep. Tom Hooper said in 1888.
So infectious was the disease, the Wyoming Stock Growers Association adopted a resolution in 1885, outlawing gambling during roundups so ranchers wouldn’t be tempted to “lose the herd on the flip of a hole card.”
Eventually, state legislators acquiesced to the growing number of churches and women in the new ‘civilized’ West with the McGill Act, officially outlawed gambling in Wyoming in 1901.
During the Great Depression, a number of gambling proposals were brought before state legislatures, but Wyoming failed to go all in.
“In 1935, Wyoming almost became a Nevada,” said Phil Roberts, a professor and member of the University of Wyoming’s History Department. “A bill legalizing full casino gambling passed both houses on the last day of the legislative session, only to be vetoed by Gov. Leslie Miller.”
The way it was
Historian Jack Huyler, in his book “And That’s the Way It Was in Jackson’s Hole,” remembers witnessing a huge money bet once in the late 1930s. A nursing convention was in town. One of the nurses walked into the Log Cabin Saloon and straight up to the roulette wheel. She plunked $1,000 down on ‘red’ without a word to anyone. “We all held our breath,” Huyler said. The marble fell in ‘red’ and she walked out with the winnings, never to be seen by locals again.
In 1933, a disgruntled gamer named Wilbur Woodrow sued Charles and Jesse Wort and Otto Johns for running a speakeasy, retail liquor business and gambling house out of the Wort Livery Stable in Jackson during Prohibition. Woodrow was allegedly pistol-whipped by the defendants for his meddling.
The Wort Hotel and Log Cabin Saloon led the way with illegal gambling through the 1940s and 1950s. In full flaunt of the law, slot machines could be found the lobby of The Wort, with poker blackjack, roulette, and craps in the bar/casino. Even Jackson mayor Harry Clissold could often be found at the card tables.
Local historian Charles Craighead wrote in his historical book, “Meet Me at The Wort,” that gambling in the early days was just for fun:
“Gambling was a pastime, a form of entertainment to help friends pass the long, severe winters. A poker game could last all night with only a few dollars changing hands, and by spring most IOUs were either torn up or worked off,” Craighead wrote.
Things began to change in the mid-1950s when professional dealers and other associates of the Las Vegas gaming industry began moving into the Jackson Hole market. Complaints of marked decks and rigged machines were common but no one seemed to mind as long as it was the tourists getting ripped off. And everyone was in on it.
Teton County Attorney Wilford Neilson frequently tipped off bar manager Steve Bartek (The Wort) to any impending raids planned by state officials. Then-Sheriff Olin Emery would often help load slot machines into waiting trucks.
The winning ticket
The recent Wyoming House Bill 170 was not the first attempt at joining the Powerball lottery. A similar bill failed in 2007, though the nonpartisan Legislative Service Office estimated that a lottery in Wyoming could generate $12 million in annual revenue.
Lotteries, historically, have commonly been viewed as an acceptable way to raise money for building projects without raising taxes. The 13 original colonies used lotteries to raise revenue and to establish colleges, churches, libraries and hospitals. But lotteries had largely turned into swindles by the 1800s.
“Lottery King” James Pattee set up fraudulent lotteries in at least four states before moving to Laramie and establishing the nationwide Wyoming Lottery in 1875. He made $7 million in the first year alone by advertising in the New York Herald. He skedaddled to Canada two years later, never paying out more than 50 cents for a $100,000 grand prize drawing. As a consequence, Wyoming outlawed lotteries in 1879, as did most states by 1900.
The era of the modern state lottery began in 1964 in New Hampshire. New York and New Jersey soon followed with their own state lotteries. By 1998, every continental state without a lottery bordered at least one state with one, making out-of-state lottery gambling a hot ticket.
Gambling craps out
By 1951, the slots were gone at The Wort, but open gambling remained and Jackson’s notoriety became too big to ignore. After Fortune magazine listed Jackson as the second toughest town in the U.S., Gov. Milward Simpson had had enough.
In 1955, pressure from Cheyenne drove the gaming tables underground (Patrons had to supply a password for the basement casino dubbed the “Snakepit”). And Simpson became further incensed when a photograph in Salt Lake City’s Deseret News revealed a local man dealing blackjack at the Log Cabin Saloon.
Gov. Simpson instructed Neilson to impeach Sheriff Emery. Neilson would not. Simpson sent the state Attorney General to Jackson. He threatened the National Guard would move in next and clean out the town. Emery finally resigned and four liquor licenses were suspended.
But it didn’t end there. The Wort continued to offer gambling on the QT, moving games around covertly from the basement to various hotel rooms in town and as far away as the Flat Creek Ranch. When the brothers John and Jess Wort sold the hotel in 1960, the new owner attempted to revive the gambling big time, but by 1961, gambling in Jackson was all but played out.
Despite changing attitudes since, Wyoming lawmakers and voters have continually defeated attempts loosen the reins on gambling, including a 1994 ballot initiative that would have allowed full-fledged casinos.
The losing ticket
One of Wyoming HB 170s main obstacles was Eric Spector, president and CEO of Wyoming Downs, the state’s only horseracing facility.
In an apparent attempt to placate Spector, HB 170 included the installation of 1,000 lottery gaming machines at his facility in Uinta County, effectively creating one more of the fastest-growing gambling facilities in the country – a ‘racino.’ That move was a deal breaker for Gov. Dave Freudenthal.
“I have said in the past that I would support a ‘clean’ lottery bill that allowed the state to join multi-state lotteries like Powerball,” Freudenthal told Planet JH. “My concern about this bill is that it really isn’t a lottery bill, it’s a gambling bill.”
Rep. Keith Gingery, R-Jackson, said he also liked the idea of the bill as it pertained to joining a multi-state lottery, but didn’t care much for the fact that the proceeds of the bill would have gone to the Hathaway Scholarship Program. He felt the program would be somewhat tainted if its budget relied on how many people played the lottery.
A Casper Star-Tribune poll in 2007, meanwhile, showed more than half of Wyoming voters support a lottery. Retailers admitted to losing customers who crossed state lines in order to buy lottery tickets. The bill was expected to generate $11 million a year for the Hathaway Scholarship fund.
HB 170 died Feb. 16 on a 35-25 vote.
“I don’t see Wyoming moving anytime in the future toward legalized gambling,” Gingery told Planet JH.
Jackson Holed ‘em
Jackson’s gambling routes can still be seen today. The recent Cutter Races feature “Calcutta” wagering along with trackside dollar bets. Calcutta betting is a type of auction-pool wagering covered in the 6-7-101 section of the Wyoming Statutes labeled “Gambling.” Bettors ‘purchase’ a team or contestant of an amateur event like horse/dog racing, rodeo, or golf. Calculttas are considered legal in Wyoming so long as certain stipulations are met, most notably the payout of at least 10 percent of the pot to “a bona fide charitable or benevolent purpose.”
This weekend’s 113th annual 49er Ball will include games of chance. Blackjack and poker will be available and legal because no money is involved. Chips can be cashed in for prizes, thereby eliminating any real profits for the “house.” Common door prizes and raffle prizes are also considered legal in the state of Wyoming.
Bingo is regulated at the state level. Numerous criteria must be met to make the event legal. The popular “Bingo Night” at the Elk’s Lodge is also licensed by the Town of Jackson.
The recent proliferation in and around town of card play, including ‘poker night,’ stems from both the popularity of poker ‘as scene on TV’ and a relaxation of certain state gaming and liquor laws in the past few years.
“It used to be that an establishment could not directly or indirectly profit in any way from a card game or other form of gambling,” said Tom Montoya, chief of enforcement at the Wyoming Liquor Division. “So, just selling these guys a beer or burger was in violation of the law.”
Today, bars that hold poker tournaments like Town Square Tavern, Camp Creek, and Nora’s are legit, as long as the house does not take a cut of the pot or charge a cover or entry fee. All gaming must take place in a room that is not the dispensing room and events like “Texas Hold ‘em Night” cannot be advertised.
“Social gaming between buddies or members of a club is okay,” Montoya said. “A lot of these guys have probably stretched it a little, but, technically, the guys at the table are required to know each other.”
Where else can you lose your wad?
Wyoming has one horserace track – Wyoming Downs, located outside of Evanston. Off-track betting parlors in Cheyenne, Evansville, Rock Springs, Rawlins offer racing simulcasts and legal betting on races. Wyoming Downs is regulated by the Wyoming Pari-Mutuel Commission, which leagalized gambling on horse and dog races in 1969.
Wyoming is also home to three full-scale casinos. The Wind River Casino is owned and operated by the Northern Arapaho Tribe. It is the largest and newest casino in the state – for now. Located just south of Riverton, the casino is a mile south of the tribe’s former site, 789 Bingo, which continues to operate as a smaller smoke shop and casino.
On Sept. 1, an unidentified Worland-area gambler at Wind River Casino hit a jackpot of nearly $390,000, one of the casino’s biggest recorded jackpots, according to staff. Wind River Casino policy prohibits identifying jackpot winners.
The Shoshone Rose, owned and operated by the Eastern Shoshone Tribe, is seven miles north of Lander on the Wind River Reservation. The 7,000 square foot Vegas-styled casino opened in September 2007. The Eastern Shoshone have also purchased 300 acres eight miles north of Riverton along the highway. Tribal leaders hope to build the biggest complex yet, complete with a hotel, restaurant and entertainment venue.
Casinos on reservation land became legal in 1988 when Congress passed the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act in response to court cases in Florida and California. The act allowed federally recognized American tribes to own and operate casinos on federal land. However, revenue generated from reservation casinos is not taxable by the State of Wyoming. Casino spokespeople say their establishments provide for the economic welfare of tribal members and the local economy, through jobs and peripheral spending. The state unsuccessfully sued to stop the Northern Arapahoe’s first casino in 2000.
Betting Sports: Ace in the “Hole” has a Gambling Tradition
Betting Sports Forum: Let's Give Racing The Royal Treatment
Betting Sports Forum: Let's Give Racing The Royal Treatment
By Daniel Collins, Baltimore Public Relations Examiner
If you’ve been following the story in the Baltimore Sun, you’re aware of Laurel Park’s attempts to procure slot machines, efforts that initially failed when Laurel (and Pimlico racetrack) owner, Magna Entertainment, failed to submit the $28.5 million in slots-applications fees.
My first thought was, why does it cost nearly $29 million just to APPLY for slots? I’m reminded of the insane fees car dealers charge (though maybe with the economy being like it is, they don’t anymore) just when you think you’ve negotiated a good price: “dealer prep” fees, advertising fees, destination charges, fees for “undercoating” and gosh knows what else.
The issue of slots in Maryland remains a public relations nightmare with no one looking good. Politicians have been divided as their constituents. On the one hand, having slots looks like an easy way to bring much needed dollars into the state (instead of having them go to Delaware, Pennsylvania or Virginia as Marylanders seek places to play slots). On the other hand, does encouraging people to toss away their money with gambling ethical? Will having slots attract criminal elements, organized crime?
For me, the bigger public relations issue is the future of Maryland racing. The Baltimore Sun has reported that Magna Entertainment is in financial difficulty and has hired bankruptcy attorneys. There’s been discussion that, given the sorry state of Pimlico and its environs, Maryland might lose one of its signature events, the Preakness Stakes. And you only need to visit Pimlico or Laurel on a weekday (or even Saturday when attendance should be at its height) to see that racing is truly suffering. Tiny, nay, microscopic “crowds,” if that isn’t an oxymoron, short fields…where once there were 11 or 12 horses in a race, I recently saw a race where only four horses went to the starting post—that’s practically a match race.
My father and his brothers trained and owned thoroughbreds back in the 50s and early 60s, so I’ve seen Maryland racing in better days. If I were the PR counsel for Maryland racing, the first thing I’d want to do is some research. Why has racing declined? Part of the reason may be simply the cost of operations. I’ve often said, if you want to lose money in a hurry, get into horse racing. There’s the cost of feeding, stabling, training the horse…monies for breeder, vet, jockey, exercise boy/girl, transportation, on and on, and the chances your horse is actually going to be a winner and bring home big purses? Well, it’s a long-shot (pun intended).
“Back in the day,” people didn’t have as many choices of activities to occupy their time. Now we have digital television, the internet, arena football, and Texas hold’em. Going to the races takes TIME. You have to DRIVE there. Park. Walk around aimlessly wondering where the grandstand is. Spend way too much money on a program or a copy of the Daily Racing Form which is about as easy to understand as hieroglyphics without the Rosetta Stone. And then you’ve got the odds…about 95% of people who go to the track don’t win any money. What fun is that, right? Let’s schedule focus groups and conduct opinion surveys to find out what people think about racing in general as well as what a trip to their local racetrack might, or should be, like.
Racetracks have tried to slap on other attractions in an attempt to get people to visit—kids games and rides, amusement parks. It’s like Starbucks trying to add a line of sandwiches, candy and baked goods—stick to what “got you there.” When you try to be all things to all people, you wind up being nothing to everybody.
Beyond Maryland Racing’s “Go Baby Go!” advertising campaign, I’ve seen little evidence of attempts to address racing’s ever dwindling attendance and sinking interest. Besides, as I’ve mentioned before in this blog, you don’t build through ads, you do it through public relations. The best ad campaign in the world won’t help you if you have a mediocre product.
Remember Frank Borman, former astronaut and president of Eastern Airlines? I can still see him in the airplane cockpit, turning to the camera and saying, “At Eastern Airlines, we earn our wings everyday!” Great ad campaign. Lousy airline. Anybody flown Eastern recently? Or Braniff? You get the idea.
The internet offers some options. How about an online Maryland Racing channel where you can see the previous day’s races for free? Or a paid channel where you can watch today’s races? Or bet online (but I’d put a cap on the betting…don’t want 3-year-olds who are computer savvy betting $50,000 on the chestnut in the third race…when I went to the track as a teen, I never carried more than $25, that way, I couldn’t lose more than that!)
At the track itself, how about having top sports radio talk shows broadcast from the track? Racing doesn’t just take place on Preakness Day you know. And as a PR sidebar, I say kudos to the Maryland Jockey Club for putting down it’s collective foot on having people bring alcohol to the Preakness infield (I’ve always HATED that, thought the uber-excessive drinking and idiocy that takes place on the infield to be a disgrace, as the revelers there care nothing for racing, you can’t even SEE the race from the infield, it’s merely an excuse to indulge in alcoholism).
Racing needs to find a way to stand on its four hooves. Not propped up with a kiddie park out front or fueled by slots. You don’t want the attraction to be the one-armed bandits, and, oh, by the way, you might notice some horses running by. We need to tap into what makes racing great, the SPORT OF KINGS. When I was young and went to the track with my Dad, I’d wear a sportscoat and tie. You DRESSED UP to go the races. It was serious, adult, because there was MONEY involved, and it was exciting. As an amateur handicapper, I can tell you there’s nothing more thrilling than to have analyzed a race, made a selection, bet on it, see the race take place just as you predicted and receiving a nice cash reward for your efforts.
Racing should offer workshops in handicapping, led by the sport’s leaders, not some guy who claims, as in the movie, LET IT RIDE!, “Had the Daily Double! Had the Daily Double!” (yeah, he sure did…9 months ago!). Offer classes through local schools and community colleges on the history of racing, what’s involved in breeding and selecting horses for this sport. People can’t APPRECIATE what they don’t know and understand.
Get creative. Commission some local university film students to create a documentary about Maryland racing and approach The Senator about having a special fundraising screening there.
Let’s give racing the "royal treatment," and make this noble sport noteworthy once again!
Betting Sports Forum: Let's Give Racing The Royal Treatment
By Daniel Collins, Baltimore Public Relations Examiner
If you’ve been following the story in the Baltimore Sun, you’re aware of Laurel Park’s attempts to procure slot machines, efforts that initially failed when Laurel (and Pimlico racetrack) owner, Magna Entertainment, failed to submit the $28.5 million in slots-applications fees.
My first thought was, why does it cost nearly $29 million just to APPLY for slots? I’m reminded of the insane fees car dealers charge (though maybe with the economy being like it is, they don’t anymore) just when you think you’ve negotiated a good price: “dealer prep” fees, advertising fees, destination charges, fees for “undercoating” and gosh knows what else.
The issue of slots in Maryland remains a public relations nightmare with no one looking good. Politicians have been divided as their constituents. On the one hand, having slots looks like an easy way to bring much needed dollars into the state (instead of having them go to Delaware, Pennsylvania or Virginia as Marylanders seek places to play slots). On the other hand, does encouraging people to toss away their money with gambling ethical? Will having slots attract criminal elements, organized crime?
For me, the bigger public relations issue is the future of Maryland racing. The Baltimore Sun has reported that Magna Entertainment is in financial difficulty and has hired bankruptcy attorneys. There’s been discussion that, given the sorry state of Pimlico and its environs, Maryland might lose one of its signature events, the Preakness Stakes. And you only need to visit Pimlico or Laurel on a weekday (or even Saturday when attendance should be at its height) to see that racing is truly suffering. Tiny, nay, microscopic “crowds,” if that isn’t an oxymoron, short fields…where once there were 11 or 12 horses in a race, I recently saw a race where only four horses went to the starting post—that’s practically a match race.
My father and his brothers trained and owned thoroughbreds back in the 50s and early 60s, so I’ve seen Maryland racing in better days. If I were the PR counsel for Maryland racing, the first thing I’d want to do is some research. Why has racing declined? Part of the reason may be simply the cost of operations. I’ve often said, if you want to lose money in a hurry, get into horse racing. There’s the cost of feeding, stabling, training the horse…monies for breeder, vet, jockey, exercise boy/girl, transportation, on and on, and the chances your horse is actually going to be a winner and bring home big purses? Well, it’s a long-shot (pun intended).
“Back in the day,” people didn’t have as many choices of activities to occupy their time. Now we have digital television, the internet, arena football, and Texas hold’em. Going to the races takes TIME. You have to DRIVE there. Park. Walk around aimlessly wondering where the grandstand is. Spend way too much money on a program or a copy of the Daily Racing Form which is about as easy to understand as hieroglyphics without the Rosetta Stone. And then you’ve got the odds…about 95% of people who go to the track don’t win any money. What fun is that, right? Let’s schedule focus groups and conduct opinion surveys to find out what people think about racing in general as well as what a trip to their local racetrack might, or should be, like.
Racetracks have tried to slap on other attractions in an attempt to get people to visit—kids games and rides, amusement parks. It’s like Starbucks trying to add a line of sandwiches, candy and baked goods—stick to what “got you there.” When you try to be all things to all people, you wind up being nothing to everybody.
Beyond Maryland Racing’s “Go Baby Go!” advertising campaign, I’ve seen little evidence of attempts to address racing’s ever dwindling attendance and sinking interest. Besides, as I’ve mentioned before in this blog, you don’t build through ads, you do it through public relations. The best ad campaign in the world won’t help you if you have a mediocre product.
Remember Frank Borman, former astronaut and president of Eastern Airlines? I can still see him in the airplane cockpit, turning to the camera and saying, “At Eastern Airlines, we earn our wings everyday!” Great ad campaign. Lousy airline. Anybody flown Eastern recently? Or Braniff? You get the idea.
The internet offers some options. How about an online Maryland Racing channel where you can see the previous day’s races for free? Or a paid channel where you can watch today’s races? Or bet online (but I’d put a cap on the betting…don’t want 3-year-olds who are computer savvy betting $50,000 on the chestnut in the third race…when I went to the track as a teen, I never carried more than $25, that way, I couldn’t lose more than that!)
At the track itself, how about having top sports radio talk shows broadcast from the track? Racing doesn’t just take place on Preakness Day you know. And as a PR sidebar, I say kudos to the Maryland Jockey Club for putting down it’s collective foot on having people bring alcohol to the Preakness infield (I’ve always HATED that, thought the uber-excessive drinking and idiocy that takes place on the infield to be a disgrace, as the revelers there care nothing for racing, you can’t even SEE the race from the infield, it’s merely an excuse to indulge in alcoholism).
Racing needs to find a way to stand on its four hooves. Not propped up with a kiddie park out front or fueled by slots. You don’t want the attraction to be the one-armed bandits, and, oh, by the way, you might notice some horses running by. We need to tap into what makes racing great, the SPORT OF KINGS. When I was young and went to the track with my Dad, I’d wear a sportscoat and tie. You DRESSED UP to go the races. It was serious, adult, because there was MONEY involved, and it was exciting. As an amateur handicapper, I can tell you there’s nothing more thrilling than to have analyzed a race, made a selection, bet on it, see the race take place just as you predicted and receiving a nice cash reward for your efforts.
Racing should offer workshops in handicapping, led by the sport’s leaders, not some guy who claims, as in the movie, LET IT RIDE!, “Had the Daily Double! Had the Daily Double!” (yeah, he sure did…9 months ago!). Offer classes through local schools and community colleges on the history of racing, what’s involved in breeding and selecting horses for this sport. People can’t APPRECIATE what they don’t know and understand.
Get creative. Commission some local university film students to create a documentary about Maryland racing and approach The Senator about having a special fundraising screening there.
Let’s give racing the "royal treatment," and make this noble sport noteworthy once again!
Betting Sports Forum: Let's Give Racing The Royal Treatment
2009 Chicago White Sox: Betting Odds & Sports Predictions
2009 Chicago White Sox: Betting Odds & Sports Predictions
Written by Jimmy Boyd
The Chicago White Sox have proven to be an interesting team in that they perform their best when the least is expected. Take last season as the most recent bit of evidence. The Sox were coming off a 72 win season in which they finished fourth in the Central and they bounced back to post 89 wins to take home the AL Central crown. Can the White Sox win another title in 2009 or will history repeat itself? Jimmy Boyd breaks down the White Sox in this MLB betting preview. The Chicago White Sox are listed at +2000 to win the 2009 World Series.
Pitching
In 2005, the White Sox had one of the best starting rotations in all of baseball. This solid group rolled through the playoffs and helped the South Siders take home a World Series crown. Now, southpaw Mark Buehrle is the last man standing from that group. He was 15-12 in 2008 with a 3.79 ERA. For the White Sox to win the Central again, they will need every bit as much production from John Danks and Gavin Floyd as they got in 2008 when the two came out of nowhere to combine for 29 wins. Danks was brilliant in his 1-0 shutout over the Twins in last seasons tiebreaker game. His stuff had the look of ace material in that game but only time will tell if he gets there. The White Sox will see if Bartolo Colon has any good inning left in him and southpaw Clayton Richard will likely be the No. 5 starter. Jose Contreras is still around, but will be out until after the All-Star Break with an Achilles tendon rupture.
The White Sox shopped closer Bobby Jenks in the offseason. It’s hard to imagine how they could have floated the blow that would have been, but it tells me that the White Sox see him on the decline and wanted to see what they could get while his value is still high. Jenks had 30 saves and a 2.63 ERA last season. Setup man Scott Linebrink could be the key to the pen’s success. The White Sox cannot afford any more shoulder issues from him.
Lineup
The White Sox are a power team and it starts with left fielder Carlos Quentin who finished second in the AL in homers despite missing the last 26 games of the season. Quentin jacked 36 and drove in 100. Right fielder Jermaine Dye will hit behind him in the clean up spot. He was also mentioned in trade rumors despite consistently delivering 30 homerun/90 RBI seasons. Dye had 34 round trippers in 2008 and 96 RBIs. DH Jim Thome is one of the greatest left handed sluggers the game has ever seen. He needs just 10 jacks to enter the top 10 in the all-time homerun list. He has 34 homeruns and 90 RBIs last season. The last of the bash brothers is Paul Konerko. He hit 22 homeruns and added 62 RBIs in just 122 games. It is the job of center fielder Jerry Owens and shortstop Alexei Ramirez to get on for the meat of the order to drive them in. Third baseman Josh Fields, catcher A.J. Pierzynski, and second baseman Chris Getz finish out the order.
Prediction: Third AL Central
The AL Central could be one of the tightest races in baseball this season with the Twins, Indians, and White Sox all having teams capable of taking it home. History says this will be a down year for the Sox though, and that likely puts them in third place. The Chicago White Sox are listed at +400 to win the AL Central.
2009 Chicago White Sox: Betting Odds & Sports Predictions
Written by Jimmy Boyd
The Chicago White Sox have proven to be an interesting team in that they perform their best when the least is expected. Take last season as the most recent bit of evidence. The Sox were coming off a 72 win season in which they finished fourth in the Central and they bounced back to post 89 wins to take home the AL Central crown. Can the White Sox win another title in 2009 or will history repeat itself? Jimmy Boyd breaks down the White Sox in this MLB betting preview. The Chicago White Sox are listed at +2000 to win the 2009 World Series.
Pitching
In 2005, the White Sox had one of the best starting rotations in all of baseball. This solid group rolled through the playoffs and helped the South Siders take home a World Series crown. Now, southpaw Mark Buehrle is the last man standing from that group. He was 15-12 in 2008 with a 3.79 ERA. For the White Sox to win the Central again, they will need every bit as much production from John Danks and Gavin Floyd as they got in 2008 when the two came out of nowhere to combine for 29 wins. Danks was brilliant in his 1-0 shutout over the Twins in last seasons tiebreaker game. His stuff had the look of ace material in that game but only time will tell if he gets there. The White Sox will see if Bartolo Colon has any good inning left in him and southpaw Clayton Richard will likely be the No. 5 starter. Jose Contreras is still around, but will be out until after the All-Star Break with an Achilles tendon rupture.
The White Sox shopped closer Bobby Jenks in the offseason. It’s hard to imagine how they could have floated the blow that would have been, but it tells me that the White Sox see him on the decline and wanted to see what they could get while his value is still high. Jenks had 30 saves and a 2.63 ERA last season. Setup man Scott Linebrink could be the key to the pen’s success. The White Sox cannot afford any more shoulder issues from him.
Lineup
The White Sox are a power team and it starts with left fielder Carlos Quentin who finished second in the AL in homers despite missing the last 26 games of the season. Quentin jacked 36 and drove in 100. Right fielder Jermaine Dye will hit behind him in the clean up spot. He was also mentioned in trade rumors despite consistently delivering 30 homerun/90 RBI seasons. Dye had 34 round trippers in 2008 and 96 RBIs. DH Jim Thome is one of the greatest left handed sluggers the game has ever seen. He needs just 10 jacks to enter the top 10 in the all-time homerun list. He has 34 homeruns and 90 RBIs last season. The last of the bash brothers is Paul Konerko. He hit 22 homeruns and added 62 RBIs in just 122 games. It is the job of center fielder Jerry Owens and shortstop Alexei Ramirez to get on for the meat of the order to drive them in. Third baseman Josh Fields, catcher A.J. Pierzynski, and second baseman Chris Getz finish out the order.
Prediction: Third AL Central
The AL Central could be one of the tightest races in baseball this season with the Twins, Indians, and White Sox all having teams capable of taking it home. History says this will be a down year for the Sox though, and that likely puts them in third place. The Chicago White Sox are listed at +400 to win the AL Central.
2009 Chicago White Sox: Betting Odds & Sports Predictions
South Africa features Betting Odds Sports
South Africa features Betting Odds Sports
BRAMLEY, SOUTH AFRICA,
Gamblingsa.com is South Africa's number one site for all things gambling. The portal has long offered gambling enthusiasts in Southern Africa the most comprehensive review of land-based as well as online casinos in the region.
But it's not just about casinos at Gambling SA. Their sports section is packed with news, views and the latest odds on a variety of sporting events, which obviously includes rugby. The Gambling SA rugby betting section is designed to help South African fans decide where to bet.
"We are huge rugby fans, and like everyone else, we have an opinion," says Ryan D, co-founder and Editor of Gambling SA. "Each week we post a preview and our tips for the weekend's games, as well as the best betting odds available from Sports books that cater for South Africans."
In addition to rugby specific betting options, the portal also reviews some of the world's largest sports betting sites that cater for South African betting fans, and offer deposits and withdrawals in Rands. "Not too many people know this, but there are a number of online sportsbooks licensed in the United Kingdom that have a specific focus on the South African marketplace," says Ryan.
"Sports betting sites like Ladbrokes.com offers odds on many different South African sporting events, and allow people to transact in Rands, eliminating the concerns people would have about exchange rates when transacting in other currencies." There are a number of options, and they are all reviewed in Gambling SA's Betting Guide.
Gambling SA continues to keep South African online casino fans up to date with the latest odds. "Although South Africans can pretty much pick and choose any online casino out there, it makes sense to pick casinos that offer transacting and betting in Rands, and make it easy to use a South African bank account or credit card," says Ryan. "We review the top online casinos that focus on the South African marketplace.
South Africa features Betting Odds Sports
BRAMLEY, SOUTH AFRICA,
Gamblingsa.com is South Africa's number one site for all things gambling. The portal has long offered gambling enthusiasts in Southern Africa the most comprehensive review of land-based as well as online casinos in the region.
But it's not just about casinos at Gambling SA. Their sports section is packed with news, views and the latest odds on a variety of sporting events, which obviously includes rugby. The Gambling SA rugby betting section is designed to help South African fans decide where to bet.
"We are huge rugby fans, and like everyone else, we have an opinion," says Ryan D, co-founder and Editor of Gambling SA. "Each week we post a preview and our tips for the weekend's games, as well as the best betting odds available from Sports books that cater for South Africans."
In addition to rugby specific betting options, the portal also reviews some of the world's largest sports betting sites that cater for South African betting fans, and offer deposits and withdrawals in Rands. "Not too many people know this, but there are a number of online sportsbooks licensed in the United Kingdom that have a specific focus on the South African marketplace," says Ryan.
"Sports betting sites like Ladbrokes.com offers odds on many different South African sporting events, and allow people to transact in Rands, eliminating the concerns people would have about exchange rates when transacting in other currencies." There are a number of options, and they are all reviewed in Gambling SA's Betting Guide.
Gambling SA continues to keep South African online casino fans up to date with the latest odds. "Although South Africans can pretty much pick and choose any online casino out there, it makes sense to pick casinos that offer transacting and betting in Rands, and make it easy to use a South African bank account or credit card," says Ryan. "We review the top online casinos that focus on the South African marketplace.
South Africa features Betting Odds Sports
Online Gambling Finds the Political Spotlight With Betting Odds Sports
Online Gambling Finds the Political Spotlight With Betting Odds Sports
With changes coming from Washington, D.C. in unprecedented fashion, the possible legalization of online gambling might be the next issue to find the political spotlight.
Recently, Congressman Barney Frank, chair of the Financial Services Committee, vowed to reintroduce a bill "within weeks" that, if passed into law, would reverse the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA), which made it illegal for banks and credit card firms to process online bets in the U.S.
The proposed legislation would also create a licensing and regulatory mechanism for online gaming operators.
In an interview with the Financial Times of London, Frank said that the UIGEA, which was passed in late 2006, was an ill-conceived law because Americans "are demanding the right to gamble online."
Of course, Frank tried to build support for similar legislation last year without success, but the new climate in Washington might offer fertile ground for Frank’s initiative.
Strengthening his case has been calls for the government to consider legalizing sports betting, which finds solid support on the Internet, but is only legal in Nevada.
According to a Merrill Lynch estimate, sports betting online could reach $200 billion by 2015. Both the Huffington Post and Bloomberg ran articles calling for Congress to legalize sports wagering. At the crux of their arguments was the dramatic need for public revenues and the billions of dollars in sports transactions that go untaxed every year.
A case in point was the recent Super Bowl, which generated about $80 million bet legally in Nevada, but resulted in an estimated $6 billion to $7 billion in online and illegal wagers. Over 10 years ago, the National Gaming Impact Study Commission estimated that U.S. citizens bet over $360 billion a year on sports. The Huffington Post estimated that number may have doubled by now.
Online Gambling Finds the Political Spotlight With Betting Odds Sports
With changes coming from Washington, D.C. in unprecedented fashion, the possible legalization of online gambling might be the next issue to find the political spotlight.
Recently, Congressman Barney Frank, chair of the Financial Services Committee, vowed to reintroduce a bill "within weeks" that, if passed into law, would reverse the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA), which made it illegal for banks and credit card firms to process online bets in the U.S.
The proposed legislation would also create a licensing and regulatory mechanism for online gaming operators.
In an interview with the Financial Times of London, Frank said that the UIGEA, which was passed in late 2006, was an ill-conceived law because Americans "are demanding the right to gamble online."
Of course, Frank tried to build support for similar legislation last year without success, but the new climate in Washington might offer fertile ground for Frank’s initiative.
Strengthening his case has been calls for the government to consider legalizing sports betting, which finds solid support on the Internet, but is only legal in Nevada.
According to a Merrill Lynch estimate, sports betting online could reach $200 billion by 2015. Both the Huffington Post and Bloomberg ran articles calling for Congress to legalize sports wagering. At the crux of their arguments was the dramatic need for public revenues and the billions of dollars in sports transactions that go untaxed every year.
A case in point was the recent Super Bowl, which generated about $80 million bet legally in Nevada, but resulted in an estimated $6 billion to $7 billion in online and illegal wagers. Over 10 years ago, the National Gaming Impact Study Commission estimated that U.S. citizens bet over $360 billion a year on sports. The Huffington Post estimated that number may have doubled by now.
Online Gambling Finds the Political Spotlight With Betting Odds Sports
Sports Forum: Why is A-Rod targeted, while Stallone is not?
Sports Forum: Why is A-Rod targeted, while Stallone is not?
by Evan Weiner, Business of Sports Examiner
The Salem Witch Trialsended in 1692. Senator Joe Mc McCarthy's reign of blacklisting came to a sudden halt in 1954, but in the world of baseball writers, sports radio talk show hosts and sports TV's talking heads The Scarlet Letter (a book which was written in 1850 by Nathaniel Hawthorne) of S, for steroids, has been pinned on Alex Rodriguez. And it is seemingly being done so for the benefit of fellow baseball writers and certain politicians, not the general public.
The whole Alex Rodriguez situation is a dog and pony show with little journalistic integrity.
The problem for the writers is two-fold. Elected officials have far more to worry about than the results of Alex Rodriguez urine sample and most baseball fans don't care. The writers, the moral guardians of baseball, are the only ones who are writing about whether Alex Rodriguez should get booed or whether he belongs in the Hall of Fame.
The writers are complaining about Alex Rodriguez news conference and how he didn't answer their questions to their satisfaction about getting supplements in the Dominican Republic. One New York newspaper, the Daily News, which recently cut its contribution to the employees’ 401k plan, sent a reporter to the Dominican Republic to see how easy it was for Rodriguez and others to get steroids and other performance enhancing drugs. It was pretty easy for me to find it in Samana in December; it is all over the place. It was simple for the Daily News reporter to find it too. Steroids are sold over the counter in the Dominican Republic pharmacies.
One by one, the bad guys, or the ones who don't necessarily play footsie with the regular baseball beat guys, Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Alex Rodriguez, are falling and the scribes are having a conflicting time over this. The bad actors, or the ones they perceive as bad actors, are paying the price by their daily public humiliations. But baseball is being tarnished.
But missing in a lot of the prose written about Alex Rodriguez is the fact that he took performance-enhancing steroids in the Dominican Republic, not the United States and that is the way of the culture there. This remains a law enforcement issue or an immigration issue. Border patrol is not going to give drug tests to athletes. Miguel Tejada got a visa to play baseball this year even though he plead guilty to one count of perjury for lying to Congress in his testimony in 2005 on whether or not Rafael Palmeiro lied about whether or not he used steroids. Tejada faces a year prison term.
Tejada got into legal trouble, not for taking illegal substances but for lying to Congress. Alex Rodriguez is only in trouble in the public court of opinion with sportswriters and columnists presenting the story.
Players like Alex Rodriguez better apologize to the baseball writers or else. The or else is you can end up like Barry Bonds, intensively disliked by people who never met him personally in the perceived perception imaginary that is sold by the media because you didn't kiss the butts of baseball writers. After all, the baseball scribes matter, just ask them even if their jobs are being lost as many newspapers globally go out of business or go into bankruptcy. After all, the baseball scribe is the eyes and ears of the fan who has no access to players. They are acting on the fans behalf.
But all of this brings up a very troubling question. Is there a new Mc McCarthyism being practiced by baseball writers and is there a media double standard when it comes to baseball players and other athletes and baseball players and entertainers?
The actor Sylvester Stallone told Time magazine in 2008 that he used human growth hormone to get in shape for his new "Rambo" movie and added "HGH (human growth hormone) is nothing.
"Testosterone to me is so important for a sense of well-being when you get older. Everyone over 40 years old would be wise to investigate it because it increases the quality of your life. Mark my words. In 10 years it will be over the counter."
In 2007, Stallone was caught smuggling 48 vials of the banned human growth hormone Jintropin into Australia. In May, he was ordered to pay $10,651 in fines and court costs. It was the end of the story; Stallone paid his fine and moved on with his life. No one was calling for the removal of the statue of his Rocky character that sits near entrance of the Philadelphia Museum of Art as a cultural landmark. After the Australian conviction, a statue of Rocky was also erected in the Serbian village of Zitiste. His film Rocky has been inducted into the National Film Registry as well as having its film props placed in the Smithsonian Museum in Washington, DC. The film and the props have not moved since his sentence.
Stallone made big news this week when it was announced that California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger will be shooting a cameo appearance for his new movie the spring. Nowhere in all the publicity stories surrounding "The Expendables" is there a mention of Stallone's Jintropin court appearance or Schwarzenegger use of steroids during his body building days before US made steroids a controlled substance. Yet the stories written about Alex Rodriguez continue a pace with the emphasis on steroids and how fans should be booing the Yankees players.
Entertainment writers have not editorialized about how Stallone has let down kids for taking drugs but baseball players are role models or at least there is a mythology about athletes as role models. Stallone could not have been a role model because actors and musicians aren't heroes like athletes.
Athletes are divided into two segments, baseball players and others. It seems very few sportswriters have ever complained about National Football League players being suspended for using banned substances. Sports and entertainment writers don't even approach professional wrestling even though the body count from performers that have died unnatural deaths in the past decade have skyrocketed with many of those deaths attributed from the use of banned performance enhancing drugs.
But for some reason only baseball players have the Scarlet Letter S as a permanent part of their wardrobe. Baseball scribes are seeing to that. Perhaps the baseball writers are trying to make up for the fact that they led the cheering in Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig's hope for a "Baseball renaissance" after the 1994-5 players strike (the owners were found guilty of non faith bargaining in that work stoppage) and accepting the Mark McGwire-Sammy Sosa home run race as an important part of the "Baseball renaissance" and looked the other way despite whispers in the industry that certain players were juicing.
In 1997 and 1998 “juicing” was illegal in the United States and that has been forgotten by the baseball writers community.
For some reason baseball, which has endured a betting scandal in 1919 (eight members of the Chicago franchise were banned from baseball for throwing World Series games, giving the victory to the Cincinnati Reds, the players were acquitted after a Grand Jury was convened) and a drug scandal in 1985. The game goes on and it will survive Clemens, Barry Bonds, Rodriguez and scorned baseball writers and columnists even if there are just a handful left after newspapers succumb to financial pressures and the recession.
Perhaps one day, Congress will delve into the entertainment industry that feature Stallone and Schwarzenegger and will address why there is no outrage that performance enhancers are used by actors and actresses and ask why there is no call for testing of actors and actresses whose bodies are their livelihoods as well and also hold hearings on why non-high school athletes are taking banned performance enhancing drugs. That would force baseball writers, who really are only interested in watching games, to do some real journalism.
Right now, all baseball players, including those who never took an illegal performance enhancer, are now forced to wear the scarlet letter, S, placed upon them by the judge and jury baseball writers. There is an awful lot wrong with the way the whole baseball-steroids-HGH affair is being played out. Where have law enforcement people been over the past 18 years after steroids possession was made illegal? Why did it take until 2002 for an investigation into the use of banned substances to begin, which happened in the BALCO case in San Francisco? After all there were hints for years that something was going on.
Why is the focus just on baseball players in the US? Why haven't there been Congressional hearings about banned performance enhancers in other industries and finally why are baseball writers the judge and jury and placing the scarlet letter S on baseball players? Why does Sylvester Stallone get a pass and no one is looking to throw him in jail when he is caught red handed with HGH and baseball players scrutinized?
The Salem Witch Trails, the Scarlet Letter and McCarthyism live on if you are a big league baseball player.
Sports Forum: Why is A-Rod targeted, while Stallone is not?
by Evan Weiner, Business of Sports Examiner
The Salem Witch Trialsended in 1692. Senator Joe Mc McCarthy's reign of blacklisting came to a sudden halt in 1954, but in the world of baseball writers, sports radio talk show hosts and sports TV's talking heads The Scarlet Letter (a book which was written in 1850 by Nathaniel Hawthorne) of S, for steroids, has been pinned on Alex Rodriguez. And it is seemingly being done so for the benefit of fellow baseball writers and certain politicians, not the general public.
The whole Alex Rodriguez situation is a dog and pony show with little journalistic integrity.
The problem for the writers is two-fold. Elected officials have far more to worry about than the results of Alex Rodriguez urine sample and most baseball fans don't care. The writers, the moral guardians of baseball, are the only ones who are writing about whether Alex Rodriguez should get booed or whether he belongs in the Hall of Fame.
The writers are complaining about Alex Rodriguez news conference and how he didn't answer their questions to their satisfaction about getting supplements in the Dominican Republic. One New York newspaper, the Daily News, which recently cut its contribution to the employees’ 401k plan, sent a reporter to the Dominican Republic to see how easy it was for Rodriguez and others to get steroids and other performance enhancing drugs. It was pretty easy for me to find it in Samana in December; it is all over the place. It was simple for the Daily News reporter to find it too. Steroids are sold over the counter in the Dominican Republic pharmacies.
One by one, the bad guys, or the ones who don't necessarily play footsie with the regular baseball beat guys, Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Alex Rodriguez, are falling and the scribes are having a conflicting time over this. The bad actors, or the ones they perceive as bad actors, are paying the price by their daily public humiliations. But baseball is being tarnished.
But missing in a lot of the prose written about Alex Rodriguez is the fact that he took performance-enhancing steroids in the Dominican Republic, not the United States and that is the way of the culture there. This remains a law enforcement issue or an immigration issue. Border patrol is not going to give drug tests to athletes. Miguel Tejada got a visa to play baseball this year even though he plead guilty to one count of perjury for lying to Congress in his testimony in 2005 on whether or not Rafael Palmeiro lied about whether or not he used steroids. Tejada faces a year prison term.
Tejada got into legal trouble, not for taking illegal substances but for lying to Congress. Alex Rodriguez is only in trouble in the public court of opinion with sportswriters and columnists presenting the story.
Players like Alex Rodriguez better apologize to the baseball writers or else. The or else is you can end up like Barry Bonds, intensively disliked by people who never met him personally in the perceived perception imaginary that is sold by the media because you didn't kiss the butts of baseball writers. After all, the baseball scribes matter, just ask them even if their jobs are being lost as many newspapers globally go out of business or go into bankruptcy. After all, the baseball scribe is the eyes and ears of the fan who has no access to players. They are acting on the fans behalf.
But all of this brings up a very troubling question. Is there a new Mc McCarthyism being practiced by baseball writers and is there a media double standard when it comes to baseball players and other athletes and baseball players and entertainers?
The actor Sylvester Stallone told Time magazine in 2008 that he used human growth hormone to get in shape for his new "Rambo" movie and added "HGH (human growth hormone) is nothing.
"Testosterone to me is so important for a sense of well-being when you get older. Everyone over 40 years old would be wise to investigate it because it increases the quality of your life. Mark my words. In 10 years it will be over the counter."
In 2007, Stallone was caught smuggling 48 vials of the banned human growth hormone Jintropin into Australia. In May, he was ordered to pay $10,651 in fines and court costs. It was the end of the story; Stallone paid his fine and moved on with his life. No one was calling for the removal of the statue of his Rocky character that sits near entrance of the Philadelphia Museum of Art as a cultural landmark. After the Australian conviction, a statue of Rocky was also erected in the Serbian village of Zitiste. His film Rocky has been inducted into the National Film Registry as well as having its film props placed in the Smithsonian Museum in Washington, DC. The film and the props have not moved since his sentence.
Stallone made big news this week when it was announced that California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger will be shooting a cameo appearance for his new movie the spring. Nowhere in all the publicity stories surrounding "The Expendables" is there a mention of Stallone's Jintropin court appearance or Schwarzenegger use of steroids during his body building days before US made steroids a controlled substance. Yet the stories written about Alex Rodriguez continue a pace with the emphasis on steroids and how fans should be booing the Yankees players.
Entertainment writers have not editorialized about how Stallone has let down kids for taking drugs but baseball players are role models or at least there is a mythology about athletes as role models. Stallone could not have been a role model because actors and musicians aren't heroes like athletes.
Athletes are divided into two segments, baseball players and others. It seems very few sportswriters have ever complained about National Football League players being suspended for using banned substances. Sports and entertainment writers don't even approach professional wrestling even though the body count from performers that have died unnatural deaths in the past decade have skyrocketed with many of those deaths attributed from the use of banned performance enhancing drugs.
But for some reason only baseball players have the Scarlet Letter S as a permanent part of their wardrobe. Baseball scribes are seeing to that. Perhaps the baseball writers are trying to make up for the fact that they led the cheering in Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig's hope for a "Baseball renaissance" after the 1994-5 players strike (the owners were found guilty of non faith bargaining in that work stoppage) and accepting the Mark McGwire-Sammy Sosa home run race as an important part of the "Baseball renaissance" and looked the other way despite whispers in the industry that certain players were juicing.
In 1997 and 1998 “juicing” was illegal in the United States and that has been forgotten by the baseball writers community.
For some reason baseball, which has endured a betting scandal in 1919 (eight members of the Chicago franchise were banned from baseball for throwing World Series games, giving the victory to the Cincinnati Reds, the players were acquitted after a Grand Jury was convened) and a drug scandal in 1985. The game goes on and it will survive Clemens, Barry Bonds, Rodriguez and scorned baseball writers and columnists even if there are just a handful left after newspapers succumb to financial pressures and the recession.
Perhaps one day, Congress will delve into the entertainment industry that feature Stallone and Schwarzenegger and will address why there is no outrage that performance enhancers are used by actors and actresses and ask why there is no call for testing of actors and actresses whose bodies are their livelihoods as well and also hold hearings on why non-high school athletes are taking banned performance enhancing drugs. That would force baseball writers, who really are only interested in watching games, to do some real journalism.
Right now, all baseball players, including those who never took an illegal performance enhancer, are now forced to wear the scarlet letter, S, placed upon them by the judge and jury baseball writers. There is an awful lot wrong with the way the whole baseball-steroids-HGH affair is being played out. Where have law enforcement people been over the past 18 years after steroids possession was made illegal? Why did it take until 2002 for an investigation into the use of banned substances to begin, which happened in the BALCO case in San Francisco? After all there were hints for years that something was going on.
Why is the focus just on baseball players in the US? Why haven't there been Congressional hearings about banned performance enhancers in other industries and finally why are baseball writers the judge and jury and placing the scarlet letter S on baseball players? Why does Sylvester Stallone get a pass and no one is looking to throw him in jail when he is caught red handed with HGH and baseball players scrutinized?
The Salem Witch Trails, the Scarlet Letter and McCarthyism live on if you are a big league baseball player.
Sports Forum: Why is A-Rod targeted, while Stallone is not?
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Despite Opposition, Delaware Might Bring Back Sports Betting
Despite Opposition, Delaware Might Bring Back Sports Betting
By Steve Berkowitz, USA TODAY
Legal, lottery-style betting on pro and college sports events might be coming to Delaware, where several recent developments could prompt lawmakers to activate the state's exemption from the 1992 federal law that generally bans such gambling.
A governor who opposed sports betting has departed after serving the maximum two four-year terms. The state projects an estimated $600 million budget deficit for the fiscal year that begins July 1. And the pillars of its gaming industry — horse racing and slot machines — are up against challenges from the introduction, or approval, of slot machines in Pennsylvania and Maryland.
"This year is different," state House Speaker Pete Schwartzkopf said.
Delaware's House of Representatives passed a sports-betting bill last year 28-10, but it didn't get past a state Senate committee because of disagreements over operational details and then-Gov. Ruth Ann Minner's opposition.
Schwartzkopf and Senate Majority Leader Tony DeLuca say a sports-betting bill will be introduced after legislators reconvene March 17, following six weeks of budget hearings. "A properly written bill stands a pretty good chance" of becoming law, Schwartzkopf said.
Gov. Jack Markell has asked the state's finance office to talk with companies that would be interested in running a sports lottery about the amounts of direct and ancillary revenue this type of betting could produce, spokesman Joe Rogalsky said.
Delaware, Montana, Nevada and Oregon have exceptions to the federal sports-betting ban because they had forms of legalized pro and college sports betting before or close to the time when legislation was introduced in 1991. Nevada was the only state with largely unlimited sports betting. Delaware and Oregon had operated sports lotteries, so named because they require players to wager on more than one outcome in a single bet known as a parlay; this creates more of an element of chance than is involved with betting on a single outcome in a sporting event.
Parlay betting on NFL games under the lottery system was allowed in Oregon from 1989 until 2006, when state lawmakers voted to end it.
It wasn't because of pressure from the NFL. And it wasn't because bettor interest had declined; in 2006, sales for the so-called sports lottery increased for a fifth consecutive year and set a record of $14 million.
"The rationale was that the state could realize more economic benefit from hosting NCAA (basketball) tournament games — specifically men's games," Oregon Lottery spokesman Chuck Baumann says.
And, Baumann says, the NCAA Division I men's basketball committee had made clear that if sports betting existed in Oregon, tournament games would not. In March, first- and second-round games will be played in Portland, the state's first men's tournament games since 1983.
As lawmakers in Delaware consider allowing pro and college sports parlay betting, they say they aren't worrying much about pressure from the NCAA, NFL or any other sports organization.
And such opposition will come "vigorously," says Laird Stabler, a lobbyist in Delaware who represents the NFL, NBA, Major League Baseball and the NCAA, "all of which strongly oppose states legalizing, and thereby promoting, betting on their sporting events."
But there are no venues in Delaware large enough for an event such as the NCAA men's basketball tournament, and legislators, facing a projected $600 million deficit for fiscal 2010 and threats to the state's lucrative gaming industry, are unlikely to be swayed by impact on possible NCAA postseason home games for the University of Delaware or Delaware State, says DeLuca.
"We have seen lobbying for the NFL come in," says DeLuca, referring to last year when the state House of Representatives approved sports-betting legislation that had faltered in the Senate. "They say they don't want to be associated with gambling. With no disrespect intended, I think that boat has already sailed."
DeLuca and Schwartzkopf say the primary obstacles to passage of a bill by legislators are mechanical issues: whether sports betting would be limited to casinos at the state's three horse racing tracks; the cost of licensing and specifics of how the betting would work.
"There are all kinds of people with vested interests," DeLuca says. "And I'm sure there will be lively debate, but I would say (a bill) is going to be successful."
This is not only a function of potential revenue gain, Schwartzkopf says, but also prevention of projected revenue loss. Delaware has a lottery, slot machines and horse racing. In fiscal 2008, it got more than $250 million of its $3.3 billion budget from slots and the lottery — $213 million from slots. That makes the lottery and slots the state's No. 4 income source to personal income taxes, franchise taxes and abandoned property.
Pennsylvania introduced slot machines in 2007. Maryland voters in November approved slots, which could start operating in 2010. Delaware has avoided large revenue losses to Pennsylvania by adding machines, extending hours and using promotions, says Thomas J. Cook, the state's deputy secretary of finance. Without sports betting, Cook says, Delaware could lose $70 million a year in revenue once Maryland's slots are fully operational.
Stabler says he questions the degree to which sports betting in Delaware could offset that.
"Even without the (budget) deficit, we have to stay competitive," Schwartzkopf says. "The bottom line with sports betting is that only Delaware can do it east of the Mississippi (federal law also allows it in Nevada and Montana). Sports betting can draw people away from the other states. And while there is money to be made on sports betting, the real dollars are in the carryover to casinos" in slot play and meals.
Despite Opposition, Delaware Might Bring Back Sports Betting
By Steve Berkowitz, USA TODAY
Legal, lottery-style betting on pro and college sports events might be coming to Delaware, where several recent developments could prompt lawmakers to activate the state's exemption from the 1992 federal law that generally bans such gambling.
A governor who opposed sports betting has departed after serving the maximum two four-year terms. The state projects an estimated $600 million budget deficit for the fiscal year that begins July 1. And the pillars of its gaming industry — horse racing and slot machines — are up against challenges from the introduction, or approval, of slot machines in Pennsylvania and Maryland.
"This year is different," state House Speaker Pete Schwartzkopf said.
Delaware's House of Representatives passed a sports-betting bill last year 28-10, but it didn't get past a state Senate committee because of disagreements over operational details and then-Gov. Ruth Ann Minner's opposition.
Schwartzkopf and Senate Majority Leader Tony DeLuca say a sports-betting bill will be introduced after legislators reconvene March 17, following six weeks of budget hearings. "A properly written bill stands a pretty good chance" of becoming law, Schwartzkopf said.
Gov. Jack Markell has asked the state's finance office to talk with companies that would be interested in running a sports lottery about the amounts of direct and ancillary revenue this type of betting could produce, spokesman Joe Rogalsky said.
Delaware, Montana, Nevada and Oregon have exceptions to the federal sports-betting ban because they had forms of legalized pro and college sports betting before or close to the time when legislation was introduced in 1991. Nevada was the only state with largely unlimited sports betting. Delaware and Oregon had operated sports lotteries, so named because they require players to wager on more than one outcome in a single bet known as a parlay; this creates more of an element of chance than is involved with betting on a single outcome in a sporting event.
Parlay betting on NFL games under the lottery system was allowed in Oregon from 1989 until 2006, when state lawmakers voted to end it.
It wasn't because of pressure from the NFL. And it wasn't because bettor interest had declined; in 2006, sales for the so-called sports lottery increased for a fifth consecutive year and set a record of $14 million.
"The rationale was that the state could realize more economic benefit from hosting NCAA (basketball) tournament games — specifically men's games," Oregon Lottery spokesman Chuck Baumann says.
And, Baumann says, the NCAA Division I men's basketball committee had made clear that if sports betting existed in Oregon, tournament games would not. In March, first- and second-round games will be played in Portland, the state's first men's tournament games since 1983.
As lawmakers in Delaware consider allowing pro and college sports parlay betting, they say they aren't worrying much about pressure from the NCAA, NFL or any other sports organization.
And such opposition will come "vigorously," says Laird Stabler, a lobbyist in Delaware who represents the NFL, NBA, Major League Baseball and the NCAA, "all of which strongly oppose states legalizing, and thereby promoting, betting on their sporting events."
But there are no venues in Delaware large enough for an event such as the NCAA men's basketball tournament, and legislators, facing a projected $600 million deficit for fiscal 2010 and threats to the state's lucrative gaming industry, are unlikely to be swayed by impact on possible NCAA postseason home games for the University of Delaware or Delaware State, says DeLuca.
"We have seen lobbying for the NFL come in," says DeLuca, referring to last year when the state House of Representatives approved sports-betting legislation that had faltered in the Senate. "They say they don't want to be associated with gambling. With no disrespect intended, I think that boat has already sailed."
DeLuca and Schwartzkopf say the primary obstacles to passage of a bill by legislators are mechanical issues: whether sports betting would be limited to casinos at the state's three horse racing tracks; the cost of licensing and specifics of how the betting would work.
"There are all kinds of people with vested interests," DeLuca says. "And I'm sure there will be lively debate, but I would say (a bill) is going to be successful."
This is not only a function of potential revenue gain, Schwartzkopf says, but also prevention of projected revenue loss. Delaware has a lottery, slot machines and horse racing. In fiscal 2008, it got more than $250 million of its $3.3 billion budget from slots and the lottery — $213 million from slots. That makes the lottery and slots the state's No. 4 income source to personal income taxes, franchise taxes and abandoned property.
Pennsylvania introduced slot machines in 2007. Maryland voters in November approved slots, which could start operating in 2010. Delaware has avoided large revenue losses to Pennsylvania by adding machines, extending hours and using promotions, says Thomas J. Cook, the state's deputy secretary of finance. Without sports betting, Cook says, Delaware could lose $70 million a year in revenue once Maryland's slots are fully operational.
Stabler says he questions the degree to which sports betting in Delaware could offset that.
"Even without the (budget) deficit, we have to stay competitive," Schwartzkopf says. "The bottom line with sports betting is that only Delaware can do it east of the Mississippi (federal law also allows it in Nevada and Montana). Sports betting can draw people away from the other states. And while there is money to be made on sports betting, the real dollars are in the carryover to casinos" in slot play and meals.
Despite Opposition, Delaware Might Bring Back Sports Betting
MGM Mirage, Bally’s, Wynn, Harrah’s Lose Out on Betting Sports During Tough Economic Times
MGM Mirage, Bally’s, Wynn, Harrah’s Lose Out on Betting Sports During Tough Economic Times
By Jagajeet Chiba
Las Vegas is hurting during these rough economic times. Hotels on the strip have drastically slashed room rates in an effort to compete.
But the likes of MGM Mirage, Bally's, Wynn, Harrah's and a whole slew of others appear to be losing out in a big way.
The online gambling sector is a multi-billion dollar industry that continues to thrive despite the economic downturn. Sure these Vegas giants want to get in on the action once all the legalities are ironed out.
However, Vegas casino companies can be doing more now to capitalize on the Internet gambling market. And the Las Vegas hotel casinos need to start marketing more effectively. The bleeding continues to get worse.
Just how bad are things with the casinos?
From the Motley Fool earlier this month:
"Seventeen casino operators are at a high risk of default, says Moody's Investors Service. The endangered species list contains mostly small, private companies. And those are just the worst of the bunch. No commercial casino operator followed by Moody's or Fitch Ratings has an investment-grade rating. "
According to Motley Fool, Harrah's Entertainment, which was taken private in early 2008, saw its long-term debt nearly double to $24 billion by Sept. 30, compared to Dec. 31, 2007. In late December 2008, Harrah's won some breathing room by exchanging some existing debt for new debt, pushing back the maturity dates on obligation.
MGM Mirage, Bally’s, Wynn, Harrah’s Lose Out on Betting Sports During Tough Economic Times
By Jagajeet Chiba
Las Vegas is hurting during these rough economic times. Hotels on the strip have drastically slashed room rates in an effort to compete.
But the likes of MGM Mirage, Bally's, Wynn, Harrah's and a whole slew of others appear to be losing out in a big way.
The online gambling sector is a multi-billion dollar industry that continues to thrive despite the economic downturn. Sure these Vegas giants want to get in on the action once all the legalities are ironed out.
However, Vegas casino companies can be doing more now to capitalize on the Internet gambling market. And the Las Vegas hotel casinos need to start marketing more effectively. The bleeding continues to get worse.
Just how bad are things with the casinos?
From the Motley Fool earlier this month:
"Seventeen casino operators are at a high risk of default, says Moody's Investors Service. The endangered species list contains mostly small, private companies. And those are just the worst of the bunch. No commercial casino operator followed by Moody's or Fitch Ratings has an investment-grade rating. "
According to Motley Fool, Harrah's Entertainment, which was taken private in early 2008, saw its long-term debt nearly double to $24 billion by Sept. 30, compared to Dec. 31, 2007. In late December 2008, Harrah's won some breathing room by exchanging some existing debt for new debt, pushing back the maturity dates on obligation.
MGM Mirage, Bally’s, Wynn, Harrah’s Lose Out on Betting Sports During Tough Economic Times
Global Financial Crisis Does NOT Affect Betting Sports
Global Financial Crisis Does NOT Affect Betting Sports
Blair Speedy | February 25, 2009
Article from: The Australian
Northern Territory-based gambling company, Centrebet, expects a 10 percent rise in annual profit as the global financial crisis fails to quench the desire to bet.
Centrebet, which recently launched a hostile takeover bid for rival International All Sports, reported a net profit of $5.3 million after tax for the first half of the financial year, down 11 per cent from the previous first half.
However, the bottom-line result was reduced by $1.2 million in unrealized foreign exchange losses and an extra $2.5 million in marketing costs, which helped to boost revenue by 11 per cent to $34.6 million.
Chairman Graham Kelly was pleased with Centrebet's outlook for solid growth despite declining economic conditions.
Managing director Con Kafataris affirmed forecasts for full-year profit to rise by at least 10 per cent.
Revenue from Australian online gambling was up 23 per cent while the Europe rose 11 per cent.
Wagering revenue was up 15 per cent to $25.9 million while sports betting revenue was up 14 per cent to $15.8 million, including a 30 per cent rise in online racing revenue to $8 million.
Global Financial Crisis Does NOT Affect Betting Sports
Blair Speedy | February 25, 2009
Article from: The Australian
Northern Territory-based gambling company, Centrebet, expects a 10 percent rise in annual profit as the global financial crisis fails to quench the desire to bet.
Centrebet, which recently launched a hostile takeover bid for rival International All Sports, reported a net profit of $5.3 million after tax for the first half of the financial year, down 11 per cent from the previous first half.
However, the bottom-line result was reduced by $1.2 million in unrealized foreign exchange losses and an extra $2.5 million in marketing costs, which helped to boost revenue by 11 per cent to $34.6 million.
Chairman Graham Kelly was pleased with Centrebet's outlook for solid growth despite declining economic conditions.
Managing director Con Kafataris affirmed forecasts for full-year profit to rise by at least 10 per cent.
Revenue from Australian online gambling was up 23 per cent while the Europe rose 11 per cent.
Wagering revenue was up 15 per cent to $25.9 million while sports betting revenue was up 14 per cent to $15.8 million, including a 30 per cent rise in online racing revenue to $8 million.
Global Financial Crisis Does NOT Affect Betting Sports
TIGER WOODS WGC ACCENTURE MATCHPLAY BETTING SPORTS TIPS
TIGER WOODS WGC ACCENTURE MATCHPLAY BETTING SPORTS TIPS
February 23, 2009 - Kyle Foster
Tiger Woods is going to be back in action for the first time in a long time at the WGC Accenture Matchplay Championship in Tucson, Arizona. With this being a non-traditional PGA Tour fixture, combined with the fact that Woods does commercials for Accenture, you have to wonder whether Woods was rushed back into contention for this one or whether he's truly been fit to perform for quite a while. I think he will be coming back with a lot of momentum, and we all know that Woods is here to play and when he plays- he wins.
Since this is a matchplay fixture featuring seeded players, it's important to know which brackets are up for grabs. At Paddy Power, one of the most interesting markets is the bracket betting. Tiger Woods (15/8) is the top seed in the Bobby Jones bracket among names like Geoff Ogilvy (15/2), Camillo Villegas (8/1) and Mike Weir (11/1). The unfortunately named Rory McIlroy (15/1) will also be in contention, and he can be happy about not being handicapped in certain areas like other Rory's.
Sergio Garcia (9/2) leads the Gary Player bracket, in-form Phil Mickelson (4/1) leads the Ben Hogan bracket while Henrik Stenson (5/1) sits atop the Sam Snead bracket. Anthony Kim (11/2) and Padraig Harrington (13/2) are sitting just behind him and I expect this to be by far the most competitive bracket.
You can also bet on Tiger Woods versus the field and back Tiger at 11/2. You can back the field (basically, Tiger Woods to not win the tournament) pays 1/10. You can take this a step further and back the Big 5 (Woods, Mickelson, Garcia, Stenson & Kim) at 7/4 or you can back the field at 2/5.
In terms of outright betting, Woods is listed at 11/2, Phil Mickelson sits at 14/1, Sergio Garcia is at 18/1 while Henrik Stenson sits at 20/1. Anthony Kim is listed at 22/1 with Geoff Ogilvy not far off at 25/1. Adam Scott has a base price of 30/1 with Camillo Villegas, Ernie Els and Padraig Harrington all rounding off the likely winners at 33/1.
TIGER WOODS WGC ACCENTURE MATCHPLAY BETTING SPORTS TIPS
February 23, 2009 - Kyle Foster
Tiger Woods is going to be back in action for the first time in a long time at the WGC Accenture Matchplay Championship in Tucson, Arizona. With this being a non-traditional PGA Tour fixture, combined with the fact that Woods does commercials for Accenture, you have to wonder whether Woods was rushed back into contention for this one or whether he's truly been fit to perform for quite a while. I think he will be coming back with a lot of momentum, and we all know that Woods is here to play and when he plays- he wins.
Since this is a matchplay fixture featuring seeded players, it's important to know which brackets are up for grabs. At Paddy Power, one of the most interesting markets is the bracket betting. Tiger Woods (15/8) is the top seed in the Bobby Jones bracket among names like Geoff Ogilvy (15/2), Camillo Villegas (8/1) and Mike Weir (11/1). The unfortunately named Rory McIlroy (15/1) will also be in contention, and he can be happy about not being handicapped in certain areas like other Rory's.
Sergio Garcia (9/2) leads the Gary Player bracket, in-form Phil Mickelson (4/1) leads the Ben Hogan bracket while Henrik Stenson (5/1) sits atop the Sam Snead bracket. Anthony Kim (11/2) and Padraig Harrington (13/2) are sitting just behind him and I expect this to be by far the most competitive bracket.
You can also bet on Tiger Woods versus the field and back Tiger at 11/2. You can back the field (basically, Tiger Woods to not win the tournament) pays 1/10. You can take this a step further and back the Big 5 (Woods, Mickelson, Garcia, Stenson & Kim) at 7/4 or you can back the field at 2/5.
In terms of outright betting, Woods is listed at 11/2, Phil Mickelson sits at 14/1, Sergio Garcia is at 18/1 while Henrik Stenson sits at 20/1. Anthony Kim is listed at 22/1 with Geoff Ogilvy not far off at 25/1. Adam Scott has a base price of 30/1 with Camillo Villegas, Ernie Els and Padraig Harrington all rounding off the likely winners at 33/1.
TIGER WOODS WGC ACCENTURE MATCHPLAY BETTING SPORTS TIPS
Monday, February 23, 2009
Lawmakers Want Sports Betting in Rhode Island
Lawmakers Want Sports Betting in Rhode Island
Say revenue could help close massive budget gap
Updated: Wednesday, 18 Feb 2009, 6:42 PM EST
Published : Wednesday, 18 Feb 2009, 4:42 PM EST
PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WPRI) - As a way to balance the budget, two Rhode Island lawmakers want to bring sports betting to Rhode Island.
State Sen. John Tassoni (D-Smithfield) and State Rep. William San Bento (D-Pawtucket, North Providence) claim making it legal will generate millions of revenue for Rhode Island, which is struggling to close at $357 million deficit.
They have filed a bill with the General Assembly that would ask Congress to lift a federal ban.
Tassoni said in Las Vegas, where sports betting is legal, the 2006 Super Bowl alone generated $95 million in bets.
He also said organized crime members in Rhode Island have been cashing in for years with illegal bookmaking, and now it's time for Rhode Island to get a cut.
"That business is a $720 billion business. Why not give it to the states?" Tassoni said.
Tassoni said Twin River and Newport Grand, the state's two gaming facilities, would manage the bets; creating jobs and boosting tourism.
However, not all lawmakers on Smith Hill are buying the idea.
"A difficult economy creates a lot of bad ideas and this is just one," said State Rep. Robert Watson (R-East Greenwich) . "I would suppose 18-, 19-, 20-year-olds could stimulate the barroom economy if we lowered the drinking age."
Watson said the government doesn't need a new source of revenue, it needs to cut spending.
If the bill does make it through the State House, lawmakers in Washington would still need to take up the issue.
When asked, Rhode Island's Congressional delegation said they generally don't support sports betting as a revenue stream.
Lawmakers Want Sports Betting in Rhode Island
Say revenue could help close massive budget gap
Updated: Wednesday, 18 Feb 2009, 6:42 PM EST
Published : Wednesday, 18 Feb 2009, 4:42 PM EST
PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WPRI) - As a way to balance the budget, two Rhode Island lawmakers want to bring sports betting to Rhode Island.
State Sen. John Tassoni (D-Smithfield) and State Rep. William San Bento (D-Pawtucket, North Providence) claim making it legal will generate millions of revenue for Rhode Island, which is struggling to close at $357 million deficit.
They have filed a bill with the General Assembly that would ask Congress to lift a federal ban.
Tassoni said in Las Vegas, where sports betting is legal, the 2006 Super Bowl alone generated $95 million in bets.
He also said organized crime members in Rhode Island have been cashing in for years with illegal bookmaking, and now it's time for Rhode Island to get a cut.
"That business is a $720 billion business. Why not give it to the states?" Tassoni said.
Tassoni said Twin River and Newport Grand, the state's two gaming facilities, would manage the bets; creating jobs and boosting tourism.
However, not all lawmakers on Smith Hill are buying the idea.
"A difficult economy creates a lot of bad ideas and this is just one," said State Rep. Robert Watson (R-East Greenwich) . "I would suppose 18-, 19-, 20-year-olds could stimulate the barroom economy if we lowered the drinking age."
Watson said the government doesn't need a new source of revenue, it needs to cut spending.
If the bill does make it through the State House, lawmakers in Washington would still need to take up the issue.
When asked, Rhode Island's Congressional delegation said they generally don't support sports betting as a revenue stream.
Lawmakers Want Sports Betting in Rhode Island
Sports Tip: Jerry Jones Says ESPN Mis-reported Stories
Sports Tip: Jerry Jones Says ESPN Mis-reported Stories
All Jerry Jones wanted to do Saturday was announce that George Strait would open the new stadium with a concert in June.
But, he was surrounded by a horde of reporters who haven’t had his attention since the Dallas Cowboys troubling collapse in December. And they peppered him for 30 minutes on Terrell Owens.
Jones said he and his son, Stephen, never discussed releasing Owens, and he indicated that Owens will remain on the team. The report, written in January by Ed Werder, quoted two sources who said Stephen Jones was persuading his dad to release Owens to improve team chemistry. One of those sources very well could have been Dan Reeves, who spent one day in Valley Ranch as a consultant before bolting through the door when Jones put this odd clause in his contract that would basically make him punch a time clock.
I don’t entirely believe Jones is wrong when he says ESPN was writing irresponsible reports. They do it often, and they hever correct the errors. They just act like it news that keeps developing—but what it is really is reporting bad information and then correcting it later through a “developing story.”
Although dropping Terrell Owens has its pros, it also has cons. Pros: team chemistry should improve, Roy Williams can handle the No. 1 role, Miles Austin can take more snaps, Jason Witten can return to 90 catches and 10 touchdowns performances and Tony Romo doesn’t need to worry about getting Owens the ball. The cons are the Cowboys lose a top 6 receiver in the NFL, take a rather large hit in the wallet, and the Cowboys get nothing for him–probably the biggest con.
If the Cowboys could work out a trade in Baltimore for Lewis and draft picks, terrific…but doubtful. If the Bengals lose their two top receivers, maybe they’d have interest in Owens for two first round picks. Would the Titans want him? Oakland Raiders might be the best possibility for the Cowboys because it is a team that desperately needs a talented wide receiver.
Sports Tip: Jerry Jones Says ESPN Mis-reported Stories
All Jerry Jones wanted to do Saturday was announce that George Strait would open the new stadium with a concert in June.
But, he was surrounded by a horde of reporters who haven’t had his attention since the Dallas Cowboys troubling collapse in December. And they peppered him for 30 minutes on Terrell Owens.
Jones said he and his son, Stephen, never discussed releasing Owens, and he indicated that Owens will remain on the team. The report, written in January by Ed Werder, quoted two sources who said Stephen Jones was persuading his dad to release Owens to improve team chemistry. One of those sources very well could have been Dan Reeves, who spent one day in Valley Ranch as a consultant before bolting through the door when Jones put this odd clause in his contract that would basically make him punch a time clock.
I don’t entirely believe Jones is wrong when he says ESPN was writing irresponsible reports. They do it often, and they hever correct the errors. They just act like it news that keeps developing—but what it is really is reporting bad information and then correcting it later through a “developing story.”
Although dropping Terrell Owens has its pros, it also has cons. Pros: team chemistry should improve, Roy Williams can handle the No. 1 role, Miles Austin can take more snaps, Jason Witten can return to 90 catches and 10 touchdowns performances and Tony Romo doesn’t need to worry about getting Owens the ball. The cons are the Cowboys lose a top 6 receiver in the NFL, take a rather large hit in the wallet, and the Cowboys get nothing for him–probably the biggest con.
If the Cowboys could work out a trade in Baltimore for Lewis and draft picks, terrific…but doubtful. If the Bengals lose their two top receivers, maybe they’d have interest in Owens for two first round picks. Would the Titans want him? Oakland Raiders might be the best possibility for the Cowboys because it is a team that desperately needs a talented wide receiver.
Sports Tip: Jerry Jones Says ESPN Mis-reported Stories
Betting Sports Tip for NBA Second Half Season 2009
Betting Sports Tip for NBA Second Half Season 2009
Submitted by Tony George on Sat, 02/21/2009 - 18:05.
The All Star Break is in the past signaling the "second half" of the 2009 NBA Picks season and this means all new betting trends to consider.
Like any season in the past, the first part has brought both surprises (Atlanta) and disappointments (Phoenix) of NBA Picks. However, even though we might have had an advantage in NBA Picks early in the season the odds makers have a tendency to even the score out making the necessary adjustments to the number. With that being said, I still decided to search for any angles that we might be able to capitalize on with our NBA Picks.
After all, teams don't necessarily perform later in the season as they did in the first part (Philly last season went from 18-30 SU in the first part to 22-12 and a 61% ATS performance). So, what NBA Picks angles might we have this year? Let's take a look:
Scenario #1 - Home Favorites It doesn't appear that we have an advantage here as home favorites in the past hit 50.9% ATS in the second half versus 49.4% in the first half of NBA picks.
Scenario #2 - Double Digit Home Favorites This angle showed a bit more promise, but not much as double digit home favorites in the second half were 41.7% ATS versus 47% previously.
Scenario #3 - Home Underdogs This trend is one to stay away from as home dogs actually did better during the first half of the season going from 49.2% ATS to 45%. Looking at it from the reverse side it give us Road Favorites a 55% ATS NBA Picks (certainly a money maker).
Scenario #4 - Double Digit Home Underdogs This angle produced a very solid betting proposition as double digit home underdogs did a complete reversal from the first half of the season hitting 61.3% ATS versus only 26.7% the second half. It could be that our double digit home pups realize that the playoffs are more than likely a dream and are just playing out the season. So all and all if you are looking for an angle that historically has produced some solid ATS NBA Picks performance during the second half of the season it is our Double Digit Road Favorites (73.3% ATS).
Betting Sports Tip for NBA Second Half Season 2009
Submitted by Tony George on Sat, 02/21/2009 - 18:05.
The All Star Break is in the past signaling the "second half" of the 2009 NBA Picks season and this means all new betting trends to consider.
Like any season in the past, the first part has brought both surprises (Atlanta) and disappointments (Phoenix) of NBA Picks. However, even though we might have had an advantage in NBA Picks early in the season the odds makers have a tendency to even the score out making the necessary adjustments to the number. With that being said, I still decided to search for any angles that we might be able to capitalize on with our NBA Picks.
After all, teams don't necessarily perform later in the season as they did in the first part (Philly last season went from 18-30 SU in the first part to 22-12 and a 61% ATS performance). So, what NBA Picks angles might we have this year? Let's take a look:
Scenario #1 - Home Favorites It doesn't appear that we have an advantage here as home favorites in the past hit 50.9% ATS in the second half versus 49.4% in the first half of NBA picks.
Scenario #2 - Double Digit Home Favorites This angle showed a bit more promise, but not much as double digit home favorites in the second half were 41.7% ATS versus 47% previously.
Scenario #3 - Home Underdogs This trend is one to stay away from as home dogs actually did better during the first half of the season going from 49.2% ATS to 45%. Looking at it from the reverse side it give us Road Favorites a 55% ATS NBA Picks (certainly a money maker).
Scenario #4 - Double Digit Home Underdogs This angle produced a very solid betting proposition as double digit home underdogs did a complete reversal from the first half of the season hitting 61.3% ATS versus only 26.7% the second half. It could be that our double digit home pups realize that the playoffs are more than likely a dream and are just playing out the season. So all and all if you are looking for an angle that historically has produced some solid ATS NBA Picks performance during the second half of the season it is our Double Digit Road Favorites (73.3% ATS).
Betting Sports Tip for NBA Second Half Season 2009
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