Canada votes down single-event betting; law enforcement officials in favor of legal bets

Twice weekly, we’ll comb through as many articles, tweets and podcasts as we can find related to the world of sports betting and daily fantasy sports, and publish the good stuff here. 

Stumble upon something you think we should include? Email info@bettingtalk.com.

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Canada’s parliament voted against legalizing single event sports betting earlier this week.

On Wednesday night, parliament voted 156 against and 133 in favour of Bill C-221 — the Safe and Regulated Sports Betting Act.

Windsor West MP Brian Masse, who led the charge on Bill C-221, blasted the Liberal government for the bill’s defeat, accusing the Liberals of “stubborn ignorance” and “injudiciousness.”

“Today, small mindedness won over good governance,” lamented the New Democrat MP.

According to the Masse, the refusal of the government to address single event sports wagering in Canada leaves a $10-billion-a-year industry in the hands of organized crime.

Masse described sports betting as a “massive revenue stream” that’s currently funding criminal activities. Not only are the Liberals ignoring this, they are ignoring a major opportunity to create jobs and stimulate economic growth in the entertainment and tourism sectors, Masse said.


A gambling advisory board comprised of former top law enforcement officers recommended ending the federal ban against sports betting.

“This is not just a victimless crime,’’ said Ed Davis, a former Boston police commissioner and member of the advisory group who said organized crime has used sports betting proceeds to fuel other criminal activity. “Illegal sports betting was the great that caused that machine to function.’’


Following Nielsen’s recent study that suggested sports betting could be a great financial boon to the NFL, Fansided took a look at the history of sports betting.

For a long time sports betting lived in the shadow, as an excess constrained to Las Vegas or the internet, still tainted by the scent of scandal and organized crime. Even though daily fantasy sports dates back to 2009, it wouldn’t be until 2015 that the “entertainment” of sports betting got the publicity it needed to really step out of the shadows. As a result of this newfound exposure, a manifest of objections followed; it began with the question of morality and the debate of legal vs. illegal.

Many challenges lay ahead for states that want to be acknowledged as a safe haven for sports bettors. Mainly because of the mafia, though, legal barriers were erected, starting in the 1970s. Congress beefed up its security for the fight against illegal gambling by first introducing the RICO Act, which was later followed by two major puzzle pieces, PASPA (1992) and the Unlawful Internet Gambling Act (2006).


Michael Shapiro interviewed former NBA commissioner David Stern ahead of a speech Stern will give at a gambling conference in Las Vegas next week.

“It seems to be an inexorable march, and it’s time to come up with a strategy that gets the various stakeholders together and see what changes, if any, make sense,” Stern said in a recent phone interview.

When daily fantasy “became a place where people could bet money and make a financial return, I thought that was one of the last barriers to the opposition to legalized gambling on sports.”


Yesterday, the NBA announced they’ve signed a 6-year deal with Sportsradar which will distribute the league’s data to sportsbook operators outside of the United States.

“This partnership is the most comprehensive we’ve ever entered into,” Sportradar managing editor Ulrich Harmuth told SportBusiness International. “It covers all areas of our business – from streaming to betting operators and data distribution, to our integrity services and the distribution of tracking data.

“The deal obviously puts us into a stronger position in the US market, but the NBA is such a huge global brand that it will help grow our business in regions such as China, where basketball is a key sport.”

NBA commissioner Adam Silver has been outspoken in his support for legalized sports betting, and the deal provides data and streaming audio-visual feeds for regulated betting. Sportradar’s Integrity Services will monitor global betting activities and trends, according to the league.


The Westgate Superbook updated their season win totals for all NBA teams earlier this week.

The Warriors’ season win total is set at 66.5. The Cavaliers and San Antonio Spurs each opened at 56.5 at the Westgate.

The day after Kevin Durant signed with the Warriors, the SuperBook opened the over/under on Golden State’s season win total at 68.5. It is the highest win total oddsmaker Jeff Sherman has ever posted prior to the season and attracted early money on the under from sharp bettors.

“Basically, the sharps are liking the under [on Golden State] and the public is liking the over,” Sherman said.


A UMass-Amherst professor spoke to Massachusetts lawmakers about the number of problem gamblers in the state in an effort to curb growth of legalized gambling.

“We continue to think about expanded gaming, whether we’re talking about online lottery, whether we’re talking about different types of online sports gambling, other things,” Marlene Warner, the executive director of the Massachusetts Council on Compulsive Gambling, said during the briefing. “I think it’s important for us to be paying attention to the data that we have currently around gambling that currently exists in Massachusetts.”


NJ.com published an article about how “wise guys” would save Atlantic City.

“You gotta have sports betting,” he says. “Create a legalized, GPS-tracked free bookmaking zone where you can place bets via a special phone into the casino sports books from anywhere in New Jersey. Make it mandatory that you have to open an account in the casino to deposit and withdraw funds.”

Independent bookmakers should also be able to operate, he says, but only within the city limits and only using the betting line set by the casinos.

“This allows bookmakers to use the casino lines, lay off cash bets, take advantage of the line ‘centers’ where they win-win if the total falls in the middle,” he says.


An online bookmaker created a Pokémon Go spinoff feature that allows betters to find free-play bets in augmented reality.

888Sport happens to sponsor four teams in the Sky Bet Championship, the soccer league just below the Barclays Premier League in the United Kingdom’s relegation-style system of tables.

Last month, 888 started using augmented reality technology to deploy bets in and around the stadiums of clubs Birmingham City, Brentford, Nottingham Forest and Preston North End.

Just like in Pokemón Go, where players hunt in real-life locations to find and capture the eponymous creatures, fans can hunt around the venues of the aforementioned teams on game day to capture newly spawned free-play bets. Once they capture the bets, they’re theirs to play.