SportsHandle and friends deliver another round-up of the week’s big developments in US sports betting.
Legal But Not Live: Projecting When Colorado, Illinois, Montana, NH, Tennessee And D.C. Will Be Online
Six jurisdictions have legalized sports betting but have not yet given the green light for the launch of legal operations. While Indiana and Iowa sprinted from legal to live (they both did it in just over three months) earlier this year, that’s not been the norm. In many cases, especially in jurisdictions with no gaming infrastructure, the timeline may stretch into a calendar year and perhaps longer.
Full story here.
How The U.S. Legal Sports Betting Business Is Fundamentally Disadvantaged
Not all bets are not created equal. With local bookies, operating through pay-per-head websites or otherwise, it’s a credit world. In regulated markets expanding all across the U.S., it’s quite different.
At a legal sportsbook, the bettor will have to “post up” the funds, meaning if he’s betting $22 on the Patriots to win $20, he must first put down $22 in some fashion — whether it’s cash at a counter, or by funding an online account and having those funds held, pending the outcome of the game. (This is almost always the case, but see “credit card caveat” below.)
Full story here.
The Secret Files In The New Jersey Sports Betting Saga: Why The Suppression Is Unlikely To Last
It is tantalizing to imagine heavily redacted depositions by various pro sports league executives taken in 2012 finally being released in full to the public.
What in those filings in the original lawsuit by the leagues — in what was an eventually futile attempt to stop New Jersey, and by extension, other states, from allowing sports betting — was so sensitive that a federal judge has kept that material private for all these years?
Full story here.
Tweet of the Times: On Social Media, NHL Team Suggests Placing Bet On Game With Gambling Partner
If you have whiplash from the 180-degree turn certain pro sports leagues have taken with respect to sports gambling in the past 18 months post-PASPA, well there’s lots of company in that Wowza Winnebago.
The latest league-sanctioned trip on the sports betting highway involves the NHL’s Pittsburgh Penguins, which of course hail from a state, Pennsylvania, where sports betting is now legal. Here’s the Tweet that was brought to my attention on Monday in a column by Bill Brink of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:
Full story here.
Fox Brand Not Translating Into Big Betting So Far In PA
Much of the industry buzz upon the release Monday by the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board of the October sports betting revenue figures surrounded the positive: handle climbing 24% month over month, tax revenue for the state looking sunny, and FanDuel Sportsbook flexing its muscles.
But the news wasn’t necessarily good for everyone. And at the bottom of the list of muscle-flexers sits FOX Bet, which some journalists thought would make an immediate impact in New Jersey and Pennsylvania.
Full story here.
