Betting Sports Tip: Paddy Power Buys Stake in Australia’s Sportsbet (Update2)
By Louisa Nesbitt
(Bloomberg) -- Paddy Power Plc, Ireland’s largest bookmaker, recently bought 51 percent of Sportsbet Pty Ltd. to expand into Australia’s gambling market.
Paddy Power will pay an initial 48.5 million Australian dollars ($36.8 million) for the stake, payable in cash and the issue of 100,000 shares, the Dublin-based company said today in a statement ahead of its annual shareholder meeting.
Paddy Power is expanding abroad as weakening economies in Ireland and the U.K. affect wagers placed in betting shops. Growth in the amounts staked at Paddy Power’s sports-betting unit accelerated “significantly” this fiscal year, partly due to the expansion of the online business outside Ireland, according to a separate statement.
“The board is satisfied with progress and momentum in the year to date and remains comfortable with the consensus market forecast for 2009 for its existing businesses, subject as ever to the volatility that could arise from sporting results,” Chairman Nigel Northridge said in the statement.
Paddy Power rose 73 cents, or 4.8 percent, to 15.99 euros in Dublin. The stock has advanced 19 percent this year, giving it a market value of 760.6 million euros ($1.04 billion).
The amount staked at Paddy Power’s sports betting business rose 1 percent at betting shops and 31 percent at its internet and telephone division, excluding currency swings, in the 19 weeks to May 12, the statement shows.
The Sportsbet acquisition will see Paddy Power enter a market similar to the U.K. and Ireland, with the same language and similar regulatory environment, Finance Director Jack Massey said in a telephone interview.
“We certainly have other things in the development pipeline we are working on,” Massey said.
Betting Sports Tip: Paddy Power Buys Stake in Australia’s Sportsbet (Update2)
Thursday, May 21, 2009
Betting Sports Forum: Legalize Online Gambling
Betting Sports Forum: Legalize Online Gambling
By Bob Barr
Former Georgia Congressman
In 2006, the Congress, which was then still controlled by the Republican Party, passed legislation (then signed by President George W. Bush) that explicitly restricted internet gambling. The “Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act” (UNIGEA) did this by prohibiting banks, credit card companies, and other financial institutions from processing or transferring gambling-related funds. While the 2006 law has made it virtually impossible for people wishing to place bets online for any activity other than horse racing to do so lawfully in the US, online gambling remains a multi-billion dollar industry offshore and in other countries.
Recently, Rep. Barney Frank of Massachusetts, Chairman of the House Financial Services Committee and a senior member of the Judiciary Committee, introduced legislation that would largely nullify the effects of UNIGEA and legalize non-sports, online gambling. The GOP and many right-wing lobby groups such as Focus on the Family and the Christian Coalition oppose online gambling and support empowering the federal government to prohibit it and other forms of gambling. They can be expected to strongly oppose Rep. Frank’s effort.
Even though Frank’s bill (HR 2267) is imperfect — it would still prohibit betting on “sporting events,” for example, and it would create a significant new federal bureaucracy within the Treasury Department to regulate, monitor and collect revenues from internet gambling licensees — it at least will open debate on the question of why the federal government should be able to put someone in prison for wagering a bet over the internet.
What is needed is legislation that simply and clearly repeals UNIGEA and that repeals or at least curtails the 1961 “Wire Act,” which continues to be broadly interpreted by the Justice Department to prohibit internet gambling. In recent years almost every state has moved to legalize some form of betting, whether by lottery, casinos or racetracks, and it makes no sense — if it ever did — to empower the federal government to continue prohibiting people from using the internet to place bets. If the only way to restore freedom in this respect is to put up with some form of regulation, let’s at least keep the regulatory aspect to a minimum and maximize the ability of adults to place bets online.
Betting Sports Forum: Legalize Online Gambling
By Bob Barr
Former Georgia Congressman
In 2006, the Congress, which was then still controlled by the Republican Party, passed legislation (then signed by President George W. Bush) that explicitly restricted internet gambling. The “Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act” (UNIGEA) did this by prohibiting banks, credit card companies, and other financial institutions from processing or transferring gambling-related funds. While the 2006 law has made it virtually impossible for people wishing to place bets online for any activity other than horse racing to do so lawfully in the US, online gambling remains a multi-billion dollar industry offshore and in other countries.
Recently, Rep. Barney Frank of Massachusetts, Chairman of the House Financial Services Committee and a senior member of the Judiciary Committee, introduced legislation that would largely nullify the effects of UNIGEA and legalize non-sports, online gambling. The GOP and many right-wing lobby groups such as Focus on the Family and the Christian Coalition oppose online gambling and support empowering the federal government to prohibit it and other forms of gambling. They can be expected to strongly oppose Rep. Frank’s effort.
Even though Frank’s bill (HR 2267) is imperfect — it would still prohibit betting on “sporting events,” for example, and it would create a significant new federal bureaucracy within the Treasury Department to regulate, monitor and collect revenues from internet gambling licensees — it at least will open debate on the question of why the federal government should be able to put someone in prison for wagering a bet over the internet.
What is needed is legislation that simply and clearly repeals UNIGEA and that repeals or at least curtails the 1961 “Wire Act,” which continues to be broadly interpreted by the Justice Department to prohibit internet gambling. In recent years almost every state has moved to legalize some form of betting, whether by lottery, casinos or racetracks, and it makes no sense — if it ever did — to empower the federal government to continue prohibiting people from using the internet to place bets. If the only way to restore freedom in this respect is to put up with some form of regulation, let’s at least keep the regulatory aspect to a minimum and maximize the ability of adults to place bets online.
Betting Sports Forum: Legalize Online Gambling
Offshore Betting Sports Keeps Gaming Fans in Their Homes
Offshore Betting Sports Keeps Gaming Fans in Their Homes
A new generation of gambling aficionados has encountered the expression “offshore sports betting,” but some may not be completely in the know what that stands for in detail. A foreign betting site basically performs extrinsically to the laws of a single state instead it can also mean a web based gaming internet site deploying its computer servers within the boundaries of a nation where machine-accessible sports gaming isn’t currently disallowed. Succinctly therefore, it can be delineated as a sports gambling business operative outside the country of the client. Live sports betting websites are in the main governed through 3 institutions. They are the OSGA (the Offshore Gaming Association), the IGC (Interactive Gaming Council) and the Fidelity Trust Gaming Association FTGA.
The Offshore Gaming Association is in fact a non-partisan institution which presently supervises the thriving offshore sports gambling trade with the duty to also supply the paying public the capability to easily locate fair internet sites to play betting games on, without stress. It labors to assure sports gambling devotee’s rights, and they don’t impose any membership expenses. The Offshore Gaming Association are a competent and unprejudiced third party agency who manifest impartial judgments, indicated by customer feedback, unprejudiced studies, calls, insider tips and also provides inside news.
The IGC are a non-commercially motivated organization. The council was founded to allow an arena for concerned people to talk through recent issues also to move forward collective worries in the world-wide interactive gaming business, in an effort to establish even-handed not to mention effective industry protocols and habits which raise end user certainty in internet sports gaming products and utilities, and to function as the trade’s universal strategy guardian and it also supplies an information clearinghouse.
The Interactive Gaming Council has established a reputation for developing dependability, right conduct and sincerity through the ethics it displays, and its appeal for ethical websites. The Interactive Gaming Council influences offshore sports gaming via endorsing a special ten-point code of conduct furthermore bills gaming web sites a license fee for publishing the council’s logo. Malcontent customers may, should they desire, recount their conflicts to the Interactive Gaming Council.
The FTGA was set up in a venture to produce a standard to improve the actions of internet sports betting websites. The IGC understand that by carrying on trade with honorable companies, they are able to found an affiliation of the fairest and most expert internet gaming businesses multi-nationally. There are councils which observe the conduct practiced by
world–wide web-based sports gambling and which should serve to allay some of the apprehensions experienced by doubters. Internet sports betting sites are entirely dependable; now that individual details should not be required also the recompense and the odds are generally equivalent to a regular Vegas-style sports wager. They lower travel time, but still maintain the original atmosphere, but these days you may game in the comfort of your beloved surroundings.
Offshore Betting Sports Keeps Gaming Fans in Their Homes
A new generation of gambling aficionados has encountered the expression “offshore sports betting,” but some may not be completely in the know what that stands for in detail. A foreign betting site basically performs extrinsically to the laws of a single state instead it can also mean a web based gaming internet site deploying its computer servers within the boundaries of a nation where machine-accessible sports gaming isn’t currently disallowed. Succinctly therefore, it can be delineated as a sports gambling business operative outside the country of the client. Live sports betting websites are in the main governed through 3 institutions. They are the OSGA (the Offshore Gaming Association), the IGC (Interactive Gaming Council) and the Fidelity Trust Gaming Association FTGA.
The Offshore Gaming Association is in fact a non-partisan institution which presently supervises the thriving offshore sports gambling trade with the duty to also supply the paying public the capability to easily locate fair internet sites to play betting games on, without stress. It labors to assure sports gambling devotee’s rights, and they don’t impose any membership expenses. The Offshore Gaming Association are a competent and unprejudiced third party agency who manifest impartial judgments, indicated by customer feedback, unprejudiced studies, calls, insider tips and also provides inside news.
The IGC are a non-commercially motivated organization. The council was founded to allow an arena for concerned people to talk through recent issues also to move forward collective worries in the world-wide interactive gaming business, in an effort to establish even-handed not to mention effective industry protocols and habits which raise end user certainty in internet sports gaming products and utilities, and to function as the trade’s universal strategy guardian and it also supplies an information clearinghouse.
The Interactive Gaming Council has established a reputation for developing dependability, right conduct and sincerity through the ethics it displays, and its appeal for ethical websites. The Interactive Gaming Council influences offshore sports gaming via endorsing a special ten-point code of conduct furthermore bills gaming web sites a license fee for publishing the council’s logo. Malcontent customers may, should they desire, recount their conflicts to the Interactive Gaming Council.
The FTGA was set up in a venture to produce a standard to improve the actions of internet sports betting websites. The IGC understand that by carrying on trade with honorable companies, they are able to found an affiliation of the fairest and most expert internet gaming businesses multi-nationally. There are councils which observe the conduct practiced by
world–wide web-based sports gambling and which should serve to allay some of the apprehensions experienced by doubters. Internet sports betting sites are entirely dependable; now that individual details should not be required also the recompense and the odds are generally equivalent to a regular Vegas-style sports wager. They lower travel time, but still maintain the original atmosphere, but these days you may game in the comfort of your beloved surroundings.
Offshore Betting Sports Keeps Gaming Fans in Their Homes
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Betting Line Sports: How a couple of "off" lines helped put an end to the first Delaware sports lottery...
Betting Line Sports: How a couple of "off" lines helped put an end to the first Delaware sports lottery...
Story Submitted by Pro Football Weekly (PFW)
In my story on Delaware legalizing sports wagering — and the NFL's challenge to the state's sports lottery — I briefly wrote on the curious case of how the state's first attempt at sports gambling in 1976 broke down. In short, one of the reasons the game ultimately failed is that bettors pounced on some NFL betting lines that were significantly off.
According to a New York Times story from Dec. 15, 1976, the intrigue centered on two games played in the final week of the regular season. The Delaware State Lottery Commission, in conjunction with a Princeton, N.J. systems analysis company, installed the 49ers as 6½-point road favorites over the Saints and the Packers as 6½-point road favorites over the Falcons for the state's "Touchdown 2" wager, which required bettors to pick between four and 12 NFL games against the spread.
However, sharp bettors saw the two NFL differently. According to the Times account, Joseph L. Zambanini, "a Wilmington tile contractor who [said] that he is an amateur oddsmaker and has access to 'the Las Vegas line,' the gambling underworld's' football point spread," gave multiple interviews indicating that the "smart money" had New Orleans as three-point favorites and Atlanta three-point favorites. *** In short, the Delaware line was 9½ points off from the sharp bettors on those two games. The Delaware spreads, Zambanini said, according to the Times, were a way to make "easy money."
And money did flow into the sports lottery, three times as much as the previous week, according to the Times account. Paul M. Simmons, the state's lottery director, decided to shut down the game on Saturday, Dec. 11.
Something like that would never happen today, what with the wide array of betting information available electronically and the ability to update lines with a keystroke, but it is certainly a story those administering the new edition of the Delaware sports lottery will keep in mind.
So how did the games turn out? Here's another twist: The Packers beat the Falcons, 24-20 — and interestingly enough, Green Bay closed as a 2½-point favorite, according to the Dec. 20, 1976 issue of Pro Football Weekly. So those who bet the Packers at 6½ on a parlay card in Delaware lost, but those who got them in either in Las Vegas (or betting through some other means) won. Note that the closing number represents a 5½-point swing from the "smart money" spread that caused such a stir in Delaware.
In the other game, the Niners rolled, 27-7, making their backers in Delaware and elsewhere winners. The Niners closed as three-point favorites, according to our records, another big point-spread swing. Interesting that in both games, the final line started to approach the spread set in the Delaware lottery — but it was still several points off its original projection.
What do I make of all of this? How interesting would it have been to write about all of that at the time...
*** — (Something longtime PFW readers might enjoy and something that, me, as the resident handicapping historian, found rather interesting: The "early Las Vegas line" in the Dec. 13, 1976 issue of PFW, which went to press the Monday before the final weekend of the season, had Atlanta as a two-point favorite and rated San Francisco-New Orleans as a pick 'em. At that time, PFW also set its own line, and it installed Atlanta as a four-point favorite and New Orleans as a two-point favorite.)
Betting Line Sports: How a couple of "off" lines helped put an end to the first Delaware sports lottery...
Story Submitted by Pro Football Weekly (PFW)
In my story on Delaware legalizing sports wagering — and the NFL's challenge to the state's sports lottery — I briefly wrote on the curious case of how the state's first attempt at sports gambling in 1976 broke down. In short, one of the reasons the game ultimately failed is that bettors pounced on some NFL betting lines that were significantly off.
According to a New York Times story from Dec. 15, 1976, the intrigue centered on two games played in the final week of the regular season. The Delaware State Lottery Commission, in conjunction with a Princeton, N.J. systems analysis company, installed the 49ers as 6½-point road favorites over the Saints and the Packers as 6½-point road favorites over the Falcons for the state's "Touchdown 2" wager, which required bettors to pick between four and 12 NFL games against the spread.
However, sharp bettors saw the two NFL differently. According to the Times account, Joseph L. Zambanini, "a Wilmington tile contractor who [said] that he is an amateur oddsmaker and has access to 'the Las Vegas line,' the gambling underworld's' football point spread," gave multiple interviews indicating that the "smart money" had New Orleans as three-point favorites and Atlanta three-point favorites. *** In short, the Delaware line was 9½ points off from the sharp bettors on those two games. The Delaware spreads, Zambanini said, according to the Times, were a way to make "easy money."
And money did flow into the sports lottery, three times as much as the previous week, according to the Times account. Paul M. Simmons, the state's lottery director, decided to shut down the game on Saturday, Dec. 11.
Something like that would never happen today, what with the wide array of betting information available electronically and the ability to update lines with a keystroke, but it is certainly a story those administering the new edition of the Delaware sports lottery will keep in mind.
So how did the games turn out? Here's another twist: The Packers beat the Falcons, 24-20 — and interestingly enough, Green Bay closed as a 2½-point favorite, according to the Dec. 20, 1976 issue of Pro Football Weekly. So those who bet the Packers at 6½ on a parlay card in Delaware lost, but those who got them in either in Las Vegas (or betting through some other means) won. Note that the closing number represents a 5½-point swing from the "smart money" spread that caused such a stir in Delaware.
In the other game, the Niners rolled, 27-7, making their backers in Delaware and elsewhere winners. The Niners closed as three-point favorites, according to our records, another big point-spread swing. Interesting that in both games, the final line started to approach the spread set in the Delaware lottery — but it was still several points off its original projection.
What do I make of all of this? How interesting would it have been to write about all of that at the time...
*** — (Something longtime PFW readers might enjoy and something that, me, as the resident handicapping historian, found rather interesting: The "early Las Vegas line" in the Dec. 13, 1976 issue of PFW, which went to press the Monday before the final weekend of the season, had Atlanta as a two-point favorite and rated San Francisco-New Orleans as a pick 'em. At that time, PFW also set its own line, and it installed Atlanta as a four-point favorite and New Orleans as a two-point favorite.)
Betting Line Sports: How a couple of "off" lines helped put an end to the first Delaware sports lottery...
Betting Sports Forum: New York Should Allow Sports Gambling
Betting Sports Forum: New York Should Allow Sports Gambling
The state of Delaware has now approved sports gambling. They have joined Nevada, Montana and Oregon. New York State should be on that list. Someone tell me why there are so many hypocrites who allow state lottery, but act like allowing people to bet on a game is the end of civilization as we know it?
If a person wants to legally bet on a game now, they can sign up for an off-shore account and gamble away. Of course if you just want to bet on something, and you live in Rochester, all you have to drive more than an hour and you can find a casino and play all the blackjack or slot machines that you would like. Or you can walk down to the 7-11 and buy a scratch off lottery ticket.
The biggest hypocrites in the country are the NFL owners who will publicly say they are against any additional legal forms of pro football gambling. But of course they know that their games popularity is tied to a great extent by a tremendous amount of illegal gambling on games.
Go ahead and allow sports gambling in New York. We have to make up for all of that money we are losing by having Tom Golisano takes up residence in Florida.
Betting Sports Forum: New York Should Allow Sports Gambling
The state of Delaware has now approved sports gambling. They have joined Nevada, Montana and Oregon. New York State should be on that list. Someone tell me why there are so many hypocrites who allow state lottery, but act like allowing people to bet on a game is the end of civilization as we know it?
If a person wants to legally bet on a game now, they can sign up for an off-shore account and gamble away. Of course if you just want to bet on something, and you live in Rochester, all you have to drive more than an hour and you can find a casino and play all the blackjack or slot machines that you would like. Or you can walk down to the 7-11 and buy a scratch off lottery ticket.
The biggest hypocrites in the country are the NFL owners who will publicly say they are against any additional legal forms of pro football gambling. But of course they know that their games popularity is tied to a great extent by a tremendous amount of illegal gambling on games.
Go ahead and allow sports gambling in New York. We have to make up for all of that money we are losing by having Tom Golisano takes up residence in Florida.
Betting Sports Forum: New York Should Allow Sports Gambling
Betting Sports Forum: The NFL’s Position On Sports Betting In Delaware
Betting Sports Forum: The NFL’s Position On Sports Betting In Delaware
Posted by Mike Florio
We’ve obtained, from NFL spokesman Greg Aiello, a copy of the brief submitted by the NFL to the Delaware Supreme Court, and we’ve read all of it carefully.
OK, we’ve skimmed all of it carefully.
OK, we’ve skimmed most of it.
OK, we’ve skimmed the first page and the last page. But we got the gist of it.
Here’s the context. Delaware thinks that its proposed sports betting scheme will be more likely to withstand subsequent court challenges if Delaware gets its Supreme Court to sign off on the process before the sports betting scheme is launched.
The league explains that it is opposing the Delaware sports betting scheme because “[s]ports lotteries threaten the integrity of NFL games and are grossly inconsistent with the values of the NFL.”
Here are the league’s arguments, in a nutshell.
First, the NFL contends that the question of whether sports gambling violates the Delaware Constitution is something that cannot be resolved easily or quickly. Article II, Section 17 of the Delaware Constitution permits only a lottery — and a lottery is premised on chance, not skill. The league points out that, in past cases arising in other states involving the “chance” versus “skill” debate, decisions have been made based on the development of a significant “factual record” (i.e., hours of droning witnesses and acres of dead trees and other stuff on which informed decisions can be made, if the folks digesting the information can stay awake long enough to make a decision).
Second, the NFL contends that the Delaware Supreme Court can’t offer a sufficiently binding and reliable opinion on whether the proposed sports betting scheme will violate federal law.
In 1992, the U.S. government essentially slammed the door on the expansion of sports gambling, banning all such betting and exempting only those states that already had allowed sports wagering and those states that had done so at some point between 1976 and 1990.
Delaware believes that a sports lottery game used for a brief time in 1976 fits within the exception to the federal law (and which failed miserably because gamblers were winning too consistently). But, as the NFL points out, there simply is no way for the Delaware Supreme Court to know what will happen if/when the feds decide to explore the proposed Delaware sports gambling initiative.
Third, the NFL argues that the Delaware Supreme Court can determine prospectively that sports betting necessarily involves skill, and thus violates the Delaware Constitution.
Frankly, we can’t imagine anyone taking the position that sports betting doesn’t involve skill. Some think the betting line is aimed at making the picking of a winner and a loser the equivalent of guessing whether a coin will come up heads or tails. In reality, the betting line is aimed at ensuring equal “action” on each team, with the bets canceling each other out and the house’s profit coming from the vigorish — the eleventh dollar that is bet in order to win ten of them.
So if a bettor possesses the ability to spot the situations in which the line is affected by the inaccurate perceptions of the masses, a bettor can push the odds in his or her favor by spotting those situations in which the line doesn’t reflect the realistic difference between the teams.
Finally, the NFL argues that the potential validation of the sports betting scheme by the Delaware Supreme Court disrupts the balance of power among the executive, legislative, and judicial branch by giving the highest court in the state a role in the development of legislation that, typically, a court interprets and applies after the other two branches have made it law.
Though we still aren’t sure whether the NFL should care about any of this, given that people are going to gamble regardless of whether it’s legal, we think that the NFL is right on this one. Sports betting is based on skill, and thus the proposed sports betting scheme would violate the Delaware Constitution.
Betting Sports Forum: The NFL’s Position On Sports Betting In Delaware
Posted by Mike Florio
We’ve obtained, from NFL spokesman Greg Aiello, a copy of the brief submitted by the NFL to the Delaware Supreme Court, and we’ve read all of it carefully.
OK, we’ve skimmed all of it carefully.
OK, we’ve skimmed most of it.
OK, we’ve skimmed the first page and the last page. But we got the gist of it.
Here’s the context. Delaware thinks that its proposed sports betting scheme will be more likely to withstand subsequent court challenges if Delaware gets its Supreme Court to sign off on the process before the sports betting scheme is launched.
The league explains that it is opposing the Delaware sports betting scheme because “[s]ports lotteries threaten the integrity of NFL games and are grossly inconsistent with the values of the NFL.”
Here are the league’s arguments, in a nutshell.
First, the NFL contends that the question of whether sports gambling violates the Delaware Constitution is something that cannot be resolved easily or quickly. Article II, Section 17 of the Delaware Constitution permits only a lottery — and a lottery is premised on chance, not skill. The league points out that, in past cases arising in other states involving the “chance” versus “skill” debate, decisions have been made based on the development of a significant “factual record” (i.e., hours of droning witnesses and acres of dead trees and other stuff on which informed decisions can be made, if the folks digesting the information can stay awake long enough to make a decision).
Second, the NFL contends that the Delaware Supreme Court can’t offer a sufficiently binding and reliable opinion on whether the proposed sports betting scheme will violate federal law.
In 1992, the U.S. government essentially slammed the door on the expansion of sports gambling, banning all such betting and exempting only those states that already had allowed sports wagering and those states that had done so at some point between 1976 and 1990.
Delaware believes that a sports lottery game used for a brief time in 1976 fits within the exception to the federal law (and which failed miserably because gamblers were winning too consistently). But, as the NFL points out, there simply is no way for the Delaware Supreme Court to know what will happen if/when the feds decide to explore the proposed Delaware sports gambling initiative.
Third, the NFL argues that the Delaware Supreme Court can determine prospectively that sports betting necessarily involves skill, and thus violates the Delaware Constitution.
Frankly, we can’t imagine anyone taking the position that sports betting doesn’t involve skill. Some think the betting line is aimed at making the picking of a winner and a loser the equivalent of guessing whether a coin will come up heads or tails. In reality, the betting line is aimed at ensuring equal “action” on each team, with the bets canceling each other out and the house’s profit coming from the vigorish — the eleventh dollar that is bet in order to win ten of them.
So if a bettor possesses the ability to spot the situations in which the line is affected by the inaccurate perceptions of the masses, a bettor can push the odds in his or her favor by spotting those situations in which the line doesn’t reflect the realistic difference between the teams.
Finally, the NFL argues that the potential validation of the sports betting scheme by the Delaware Supreme Court disrupts the balance of power among the executive, legislative, and judicial branch by giving the highest court in the state a role in the development of legislation that, typically, a court interprets and applies after the other two branches have made it law.
Though we still aren’t sure whether the NFL should care about any of this, given that people are going to gamble regardless of whether it’s legal, we think that the NFL is right on this one. Sports betting is based on skill, and thus the proposed sports betting scheme would violate the Delaware Constitution.
Betting Sports Forum: The NFL’s Position On Sports Betting In Delaware
Betting Sports: The fish that got away
Betting Sports: The fish that got away
Submitted by New Jersey CourierPostonline.com
New Jersey lawmakers erred by not giving Atlantic City casinos the chance to offer sports betting first.
Atlantic City already has been hit hard by the national recession and by the opening of racetrack casinos in Pennsylvania.
Things are about to get tougher.
Last week, Delaware Gov. Jack Markell signed a bill that makes betting on sports legal in the state. Delaware's two racetrack casinos -- Delaware Park in Wilmington and Dover Downs in Dover -- plan to have sports betting operations up and running by the start of the NFL season in September.
New Jersey lawmakers missed the boat, big time, and Atlantic City will pay for it in more lost business.
Delaware's racetrack casinos, which are also due to get table games such as blackjack and poker under the bill Markell signed, will lure more gamblers, drawing some of them away from Atlantic City. Delaware's casinos will now be able to offer something that no gambling parlors outside of Nevada have, including those in Atlantic City.
New Jersey could have and should have cornered the market on this.
In the 1990s, when there was federal legislation and New Jersey was given a chance to have legal sports betting, lawmakers here foolishly said no.
Then, over the past five to 10 years, when it became obvious in the Internet age that sports betting online cannot be stopped, our lawmakers didn't do anything to get the federal law changed.
Finally, U.S. Sen. Ray Lesniak, D-Union, filed suit in March to overturn the federal law that bars 46 states from legalizing sports betting. Lesniak contends, rightly so, that's its wrong to allow Delaware, Nevada, Montana and Oregon to have sports betting but not other states.
While we hope Lesniak's lawsuit is decided in New Jersey's favor, it may be too little too late. Delaware will now establish itself as a magnet for bettors who want to wager on sports. That will pull people away from Atlantic City.
New Jersey lawmakers dropped the ball on this in the early 1990s and this decade by not taking action against the federal law. We just hope the mistake doesn't cost too many more jobs in battered Atlantic City.
Betting Sports: The fish that got away
Submitted by New Jersey CourierPostonline.com
New Jersey lawmakers erred by not giving Atlantic City casinos the chance to offer sports betting first.
Atlantic City already has been hit hard by the national recession and by the opening of racetrack casinos in Pennsylvania.
Things are about to get tougher.
Last week, Delaware Gov. Jack Markell signed a bill that makes betting on sports legal in the state. Delaware's two racetrack casinos -- Delaware Park in Wilmington and Dover Downs in Dover -- plan to have sports betting operations up and running by the start of the NFL season in September.
New Jersey lawmakers missed the boat, big time, and Atlantic City will pay for it in more lost business.
Delaware's racetrack casinos, which are also due to get table games such as blackjack and poker under the bill Markell signed, will lure more gamblers, drawing some of them away from Atlantic City. Delaware's casinos will now be able to offer something that no gambling parlors outside of Nevada have, including those in Atlantic City.
New Jersey could have and should have cornered the market on this.
In the 1990s, when there was federal legislation and New Jersey was given a chance to have legal sports betting, lawmakers here foolishly said no.
Then, over the past five to 10 years, when it became obvious in the Internet age that sports betting online cannot be stopped, our lawmakers didn't do anything to get the federal law changed.
Finally, U.S. Sen. Ray Lesniak, D-Union, filed suit in March to overturn the federal law that bars 46 states from legalizing sports betting. Lesniak contends, rightly so, that's its wrong to allow Delaware, Nevada, Montana and Oregon to have sports betting but not other states.
While we hope Lesniak's lawsuit is decided in New Jersey's favor, it may be too little too late. Delaware will now establish itself as a magnet for bettors who want to wager on sports. That will pull people away from Atlantic City.
New Jersey lawmakers dropped the ball on this in the early 1990s and this decade by not taking action against the federal law. We just hope the mistake doesn't cost too many more jobs in battered Atlantic City.
Betting Sports: The fish that got away
Delaware's Betting Sports System system yet to take shape
Delaware's Betting Sports System system yet to take shape
By Frank Fitzpatrick
Philadelphia Inquirer Staff Writer
Even last week, as Gov. Jack Markell signed the enabling legislation in a Delaware Park VIP lounge, in front of a giant video scoreboard that listed odds on all that day's sporting matchups, few in the state were willing to bet on just how Delaware's new sports-wagering system might work.
"The shape it will take, that's not really clear at this point," said Corey Morowitz, an Atlantic City-based gambling consultant who has advised Delaware.
Will it be a football pool-type lottery like the one that flopped in Delaware in 1976? Will bettors be allowed to wager on single sporting events, in casino-style luxury, as they can in Las Vegas? Or will they be restricted to parlays - single bets on two or more events - as is the case in several Canadian provinces?
No one will know until Delaware's Supreme Court, which is scheduled to begin deliberations on the issue this week, rules on the issue.
But in the excitement generated by the legislature's decision to recommence sports wagering after a three-decades-plus absence, supporters said they favored a system that would approximate the Las Vegas sports-book experience - point spreads, single-game wagers, and all the amenities a casino can provide.
Officials at Delaware Park, the northernmost of the state's three racetrack-slot casinos - racinos - said discussions with their customers has convinced them a Las Vegas-style system is the way to go.
"These people tell us they'd be more inclined to make a straight bet, say, putting $100 against the spread on the Eagles over the Giants," said Andrew Gentile, general manager of Delaware Park, "than play some sort of parlay or lottery-type game."
Thirty-three years ago, when cash-starved states everywhere began exploring gambling's revenue potential and when the only legal option here was a bet on a mediocre horse race, Delaware, over the loud objections of the NFL, instituted a sports lottery.
Bettors were required to pick the outcomes of multiple football games, just as they would in an office pool. But the odds were high and the public's interest low. When a few state-set point spreads were so wildly out of line that they threatened to bankrupt the system, the brief experiment was discarded like a losing ticket.
The door to sports gambling was left open when, in 1992, a federal ban on the practice grandfathered in the four states - Delaware, Nevada, Oregon and Montana - where it remained legal.
Throughout the years there was occasional talk about reviving sports gambling, but it was only in the last few years, as the nation's second smallest state faced a big-state budget deficit, that the sleeping giant was reawakened.
Markell, whose first budget is projected to be nearly $800 million in the red, recently signed into law a measure that once again permits sports betting in the First State. (The legislation also permits table games at the state's three racinos, the details of which will be determined by a commission.)
Predictably, politicians, gamblers and Delaware's racino operators hailed the move as a financial panacea for the state as well as a necessary salvo in an ever-escalating gambling war with Mid-Atlantic neighbors Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Maryland.
"I think if you polled the people in our industry and our customers, the closer we get to what Las Vegas does, the better it will be for everyone involved," said Ed Sutor, CEO of Dover Downs, a harness track.
If the court rejects single-game bets, however, most observers believe the next most likely scenario would be parlay bets, a system expert predict would generate far less revenue.
Still, regardless of the court's decision, Philadelphia-area sports bettors who make the trip south on I-95 should discover a small-scale version of a Vegas sports book whenever the system gets rolling, presumably in time for the fall start of the 2009 NFL season.
At Delaware Park, Dover Downs, and Harrington Raceway, they will find complexes that offer upscale accommodations, entertainment, food options that range from snack bars to gourmet meals, and plush sports books equipped with odds boards, trained cashiers, and scores of TVs tuned into games across the globe.
"We've got all the technology in place," said Gentile, the Delaware Park GM. "We can be up and running whenever the state wants to start."
Whatever form the sports gambling takes, operators said, the racinos won't have to invest heavily in new infrastructure.
All three already have race books, where bettors can watch and wager on horse races and jai-alai matches. A few more cashiers, some additional training, a couple more flat-screen TVs, and maybe an additional snack bar or restaurant, and they said they'll be ready to go.
"We've got more than 200 TVs and video boards already," said Gentile. "And we've got all the other amenities in place too."
Dover, which because of the economy recently scrapped plans for a $50 million addition that could have been used for a sports book and table games, will convert a now-empty, 7,500-square-foot restaurant on its site into a combined facility for sports and racing bettors.
"That will be plenty large enough most of the time," said Sutor. "But we don't know what will happen during those events that typically pack the books in Vegas, like Super Bowl weekend or the start of the NCAA tournament."
Sutor and Gentile both said they hoped the lingering sports-betting questions would be resolved in time for the 2009 NFL season this fall.
The state's Supreme Court, which was asked to intervene by Markell, already has begun accepting legal briefs from Wilmington law firms on both sides of the issue.
The NFL again has publicly come out against sports wagering in the state and recently filed an opponent's brief with the court. League spokesman Brian McCarthy said that in terms of the opposition it might mount "nothing had been ruled out."
The league contends bets on its games are illegal under Delaware law because they require skill instead of chance. That distinction is a significant one.
In 1977, the NFL sued Delaware to try to halt the gambling scheme. The Supreme Court approved the lottery system, noting that the enacting legislation allowed chance-based wagers. However, it said single-game wagers were not permitted because, in its opinion, those required an element of skill, something the law prohibited.
That reasoning has single-game proponents optimistic.
"Back then the court's ruling noted that when Jimmy the Greek picked games even up, he was right 75 percent of the time," said Sutor. "But when he picked winners using a point spread, his success rate fell to 50 percent. Well, we believe 50 percent is a chance bet."
Regardless of the outcome, Delaware, the only state east of the Mississippi where sports gambling is permitted, should find itself with a monopoly in a heavily populated, gambling-savvy region.
"We already draw from several markets - Delaware, Southeast Pennsylvania, southern New Jersey, and Baltimore-D.C.," said Ray Spera, Delaware Park's senior vice president. "We would expect that sports betting would give us a deeper penetration in all of those areas."
Oregon, which had a sports lottery, dropped it in 2006 after the NCAA threatened to prohibit any of its tournaments from being played there.
The NCAA could penalize Delaware in much the same way, a move that could seriously impact the University of Delaware.
Delaware athletic director Edgar Johnson said the school has remained neutral on the sports-betting issue because it collects a sizable portion of its revenue from the state.
But, Johnson said, it would be "wrongheaded" for the NCAA to penalize the school's student-athletes for a situation over which they have no control.
"Our football team has been in two national championship games in the last five years," he said. "They've had several playoff games at home. We've hosted national lacrosse playoffs, and we're making a bid now to hold a national volleyball tournament at the Carpenter Complex.
"If all that is taken away because Delaware has legalized sports betting, it would not only hurt our student-athletes but have a serious impact on our entire athletic program."
Not surprisingly, estimates on how much revenue sports gambling would generate for the state vary widely.
Delaware's Betting Sports System system yet to take shape
By Frank Fitzpatrick
Philadelphia Inquirer Staff Writer
Even last week, as Gov. Jack Markell signed the enabling legislation in a Delaware Park VIP lounge, in front of a giant video scoreboard that listed odds on all that day's sporting matchups, few in the state were willing to bet on just how Delaware's new sports-wagering system might work.
"The shape it will take, that's not really clear at this point," said Corey Morowitz, an Atlantic City-based gambling consultant who has advised Delaware.
Will it be a football pool-type lottery like the one that flopped in Delaware in 1976? Will bettors be allowed to wager on single sporting events, in casino-style luxury, as they can in Las Vegas? Or will they be restricted to parlays - single bets on two or more events - as is the case in several Canadian provinces?
No one will know until Delaware's Supreme Court, which is scheduled to begin deliberations on the issue this week, rules on the issue.
But in the excitement generated by the legislature's decision to recommence sports wagering after a three-decades-plus absence, supporters said they favored a system that would approximate the Las Vegas sports-book experience - point spreads, single-game wagers, and all the amenities a casino can provide.
Officials at Delaware Park, the northernmost of the state's three racetrack-slot casinos - racinos - said discussions with their customers has convinced them a Las Vegas-style system is the way to go.
"These people tell us they'd be more inclined to make a straight bet, say, putting $100 against the spread on the Eagles over the Giants," said Andrew Gentile, general manager of Delaware Park, "than play some sort of parlay or lottery-type game."
Thirty-three years ago, when cash-starved states everywhere began exploring gambling's revenue potential and when the only legal option here was a bet on a mediocre horse race, Delaware, over the loud objections of the NFL, instituted a sports lottery.
Bettors were required to pick the outcomes of multiple football games, just as they would in an office pool. But the odds were high and the public's interest low. When a few state-set point spreads were so wildly out of line that they threatened to bankrupt the system, the brief experiment was discarded like a losing ticket.
The door to sports gambling was left open when, in 1992, a federal ban on the practice grandfathered in the four states - Delaware, Nevada, Oregon and Montana - where it remained legal.
Throughout the years there was occasional talk about reviving sports gambling, but it was only in the last few years, as the nation's second smallest state faced a big-state budget deficit, that the sleeping giant was reawakened.
Markell, whose first budget is projected to be nearly $800 million in the red, recently signed into law a measure that once again permits sports betting in the First State. (The legislation also permits table games at the state's three racinos, the details of which will be determined by a commission.)
Predictably, politicians, gamblers and Delaware's racino operators hailed the move as a financial panacea for the state as well as a necessary salvo in an ever-escalating gambling war with Mid-Atlantic neighbors Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Maryland.
"I think if you polled the people in our industry and our customers, the closer we get to what Las Vegas does, the better it will be for everyone involved," said Ed Sutor, CEO of Dover Downs, a harness track.
If the court rejects single-game bets, however, most observers believe the next most likely scenario would be parlay bets, a system expert predict would generate far less revenue.
Still, regardless of the court's decision, Philadelphia-area sports bettors who make the trip south on I-95 should discover a small-scale version of a Vegas sports book whenever the system gets rolling, presumably in time for the fall start of the 2009 NFL season.
At Delaware Park, Dover Downs, and Harrington Raceway, they will find complexes that offer upscale accommodations, entertainment, food options that range from snack bars to gourmet meals, and plush sports books equipped with odds boards, trained cashiers, and scores of TVs tuned into games across the globe.
"We've got all the technology in place," said Gentile, the Delaware Park GM. "We can be up and running whenever the state wants to start."
Whatever form the sports gambling takes, operators said, the racinos won't have to invest heavily in new infrastructure.
All three already have race books, where bettors can watch and wager on horse races and jai-alai matches. A few more cashiers, some additional training, a couple more flat-screen TVs, and maybe an additional snack bar or restaurant, and they said they'll be ready to go.
"We've got more than 200 TVs and video boards already," said Gentile. "And we've got all the other amenities in place too."
Dover, which because of the economy recently scrapped plans for a $50 million addition that could have been used for a sports book and table games, will convert a now-empty, 7,500-square-foot restaurant on its site into a combined facility for sports and racing bettors.
"That will be plenty large enough most of the time," said Sutor. "But we don't know what will happen during those events that typically pack the books in Vegas, like Super Bowl weekend or the start of the NCAA tournament."
Sutor and Gentile both said they hoped the lingering sports-betting questions would be resolved in time for the 2009 NFL season this fall.
The state's Supreme Court, which was asked to intervene by Markell, already has begun accepting legal briefs from Wilmington law firms on both sides of the issue.
The NFL again has publicly come out against sports wagering in the state and recently filed an opponent's brief with the court. League spokesman Brian McCarthy said that in terms of the opposition it might mount "nothing had been ruled out."
The league contends bets on its games are illegal under Delaware law because they require skill instead of chance. That distinction is a significant one.
In 1977, the NFL sued Delaware to try to halt the gambling scheme. The Supreme Court approved the lottery system, noting that the enacting legislation allowed chance-based wagers. However, it said single-game wagers were not permitted because, in its opinion, those required an element of skill, something the law prohibited.
That reasoning has single-game proponents optimistic.
"Back then the court's ruling noted that when Jimmy the Greek picked games even up, he was right 75 percent of the time," said Sutor. "But when he picked winners using a point spread, his success rate fell to 50 percent. Well, we believe 50 percent is a chance bet."
Regardless of the outcome, Delaware, the only state east of the Mississippi where sports gambling is permitted, should find itself with a monopoly in a heavily populated, gambling-savvy region.
"We already draw from several markets - Delaware, Southeast Pennsylvania, southern New Jersey, and Baltimore-D.C.," said Ray Spera, Delaware Park's senior vice president. "We would expect that sports betting would give us a deeper penetration in all of those areas."
Oregon, which had a sports lottery, dropped it in 2006 after the NCAA threatened to prohibit any of its tournaments from being played there.
The NCAA could penalize Delaware in much the same way, a move that could seriously impact the University of Delaware.
Delaware athletic director Edgar Johnson said the school has remained neutral on the sports-betting issue because it collects a sizable portion of its revenue from the state.
But, Johnson said, it would be "wrongheaded" for the NCAA to penalize the school's student-athletes for a situation over which they have no control.
"Our football team has been in two national championship games in the last five years," he said. "They've had several playoff games at home. We've hosted national lacrosse playoffs, and we're making a bid now to hold a national volleyball tournament at the Carpenter Complex.
"If all that is taken away because Delaware has legalized sports betting, it would not only hurt our student-athletes but have a serious impact on our entire athletic program."
Not surprisingly, estimates on how much revenue sports gambling would generate for the state vary widely.
Delaware's Betting Sports System system yet to take shape
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