SportsHandle and friends deliver another round-up of the week’s big developments in US sports betting.
Richard Schuetz on the old days of integrity monitoring
Consultant Richard Schuetz recalls his time at the Stardust Casino in Las Vegas and how the sportsbook handled integrity monitoring issues. He also compares it to the work Matthew Holt and US Integrity are doing today.
“We were looking for insight, and we were looking for insight quickly. People used to walk into our store with briefcases, and we didn’t want to limit a briefcase unnecessarily. We always looked for reasons to take a bet, not to refuse it. If you can imagine such a thing, we also had big players who would work to deceive us, making this all even more confusing. If the numbers then continued not to make sense to us, and others, we would get on the phone, and this series of calls was not to other books,” Schuetz recalled.
Of course, the recourse then was purely the Nevada Gaming Control Board, which couldn’t do much of anything given basically every sporting event was outside state lines. The next line of defense? The FBI.
Things have certainly changed since then.
Craig Carton moving on from daily radio show
With news that Craig Carton is being promoted in his role with FOX Sports, he will be stepping away from his afternoon radio show on WFAN.
Carton will continue his weekly show with a gambling addiction focus, Hello, My Name Is Craig. Carton has been a controversial figure in sports media, including his post with FanDuel serving as the brand’s National Responsible Gambling Ambassador.
Meanwhile, FanDuel continues to search for potential new on-air talent now that Pat McAfee is taking his talents to ESPN. The rumor mill suggests another FOX Sports personality, Shannon Sharpe, could be in talks with the operator.
Push to forbid smoking at NJ casinos will wait until the fall
With the New Jersey legislature heading on its summer recess as of June 30, the group Casino Employees Against Smoking’s Effects (CEASE) will have to continue its lobbying push in the fall.
“We’re officially in the same spot we’ve been for the past couple of years,” Pete Naccarelli, a Borgata dealer and one of the leaders of CEASE, told US Bets. “But we’re in the weeds and making progress. Upwards of 85 legislators out of the 120 in the Senate and Assembly are co-sponsoring the bill, and we’ve gotten a lot of good buzz during this spring’s hearings.”
Unlike most other states, the New Jersey elgislature is in and out of session through the entire year, so there are some months for CEASE to work with before the session officially ends on New Year’s Eve.
Celebrating Juneteenth with a look at the story of Ruby Duncan
Mike Seely of US Bets used the recent Juneteenth holiday to recall and celebrate the story of casino employee Ruby Duncan. A mother of six, she worked in several facets of the casino industry including housekeeping and as a short-order cook.
She was also an activist. After being laid off by a casino and forced to go on welfare, which was not enough to make ends meet. She then became president of the Clark County Welfare Rights Association. Their actions to draw attention to the cause were so effective, they even managed to get Caesars Palace to briefly shut down the gaming floor.
Bally Bet shutting down to ramp up
In preparation for the transition to the Kambi platform, Bally’s is temporarily shuddering the Bally Bet online sportsbook in every state except for Arizona. The shutdown will officially begin on June 30. Current customers have until then to withdraw their accounts.
Bally’s had previously announced they were moving on from the Bet.Works platform the company acquired back in 2021 for $125 million.
In the states where Bally Bet had been operational, it has yet to make much of a dent in terms of market share.
NFL stands by gambling policy and league facility betting ban
Matt Rybaltowski of SportsHandle followed up on his story about the investigation of Isaiah Rogers Sr of the Indianapolis Colts with a look at the NFL’s recent push to promote its gambling betting policy.
As Rybaltowski noted, the league stood by its rule about the gambling prohibition at league facilities, however, the NFL has not done much in the way of providing regulators a list of prohibited bettors.
