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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NFL commissioner Roger Goodell seemed to have softened his stance on sports betting during an interview on ESPN Radio last week. Las Vegas Review-Journal’s Matt Youmans evaluated Goodell’s statement in a recently published column.
“All of us have evolved a little on gambling,” Goodell said. “To me, where I cross the line is anything that can impact the integrity of the game. If people think it is something that can influence the outcome of a game, we are absolutely opposed to that.”
The first part of his statement indicates an overdue breakthrough. Goodell’s opinion of legal sports betting is outdated, and the league’s relationship with gambling is hypocritical, and maybe he’s finally ready to admit it and open his mind.
The NFL has scheduled three regular-season games in London and one in Mexico City, where the Raiders will play the Houston Texans, in 2016. And sports books will be doing business in both cities. How is that for hypocrisy?
Just as relevant is the NFL’s relationship and profitable business partnership with daily fantasy sports, an industry that exists amid legal ambiguity yet is definitely a form of gambling.
The second part of Goodell’s statement hints at an absurd, archaic belief that gambling rats could be running around Las Vegas trying to influence professional players to fix games. In another era, say the 1970s, that paranoia might have been justified.
Following Goodell’s statement, some Pennsylvania lawmakers are making a push to be ready for sports betting legalization sooner rather than later.
“We all believe sports betting is a viable option,” said Rep. John Payne, R-Derry Twp., who chairs the House Gaming Oversight Committee. “It’s something that will come to fruition in the next year and I’m just making sure that when it does happen, we’re ready to implement it as soon as possible.”
Up until last week, the NFL has been steadfast in its opposition to legalized sports betting while NBA Commissioner Adam Silver and Major League Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred have been open-minded about it.
Leicester City won the English Premier League yesterday by virtue of Tottenham failing to defeat Chelsea. Tottenham, the only team that could catch Leicester in the point standings, had a 2-0 lead before Chelsea earned a 2-2 draw. Leicester, which started the season with 5000-to-1 odds to win the title, cost the three largest sportsbooks in England $11.4 million.
Leicester’s win results in the worst loss for the sportsbooks in Premier League futures book history, as the volume of title bets on the favorites — namely Manchester United, Manchester City, Chelsea and Arsenal — isn’t enough to cover the losses on the Foxes. Prior to Leicester’s title this season, those four teams had been the only winners of the Premier League for the past 20 years.
The sportsbooks did make some money back off Leicester’s success and the misfortune of the most heavily bet teams, namely in early season betting.
Ladbrokes officials say they will offer 5000-to-1 odds again when a long shot surfaces, but Leicester City has changed their thinking in one way. They say will never again offer 5000-to-1 odds on a soccer team to win a title.
Ladbrokes said it is the the longest odds on a single event to ever pay off, though longer odds have been paid off on called cumulative events. In 1996, a bettor named Darren Yates won more than $800,000 on a $32 bet that the seven horses that jockey Frankie Dettori rode at Ascot would prevail.
ESPN’s Darren Rovell profiled a handful of bettors who cashed in on the unlikely champions.
“I was a bit drunk at the time,” Herbert now admits. “So no, of course I didn’t think they were actually going to win the league.”
Idaho became the latest state to ban daily fantasy sports yesterday.
Industry powers DraftKings and FanDuel have agreed to quit providing those contests to consumers in Idaho, Attorney General Lawrence Wasden said in a statement released Monday morning. The agreement was reached after three months of negotiations, Wasden said.
“The concern I have is that the paid daily sports offerings provided by these companies constitute gambling under Idaho law,” Wasden said in the statement. “I have a duty to enforce and uphold that law. I commend the companies for negotiating in good faith and agreeing not to make these contests available in Idaho.”
Under terms of the agreement, the companies, as of May 1, will not allow any consumers based in Idaho to participate in any of their daily paid online fantasy football, baseball, basketball and other sports contests.
CBC Sports published the first of article a three-part series discussing sports betting in Canada.
Part 1: Online sports gambling thrives in Canada’s legal ‘grey zone’
“There have been no prosecutions that resulted in convictions or guilty pleas, so the offshore sports books look at Canada as a grey zone,” says lawyer Michael Lipton, a gaming law expert with Dickinson Wright in Toronto.
Why has the Canadian government chosen to mostly turn a blind eye to internet betting? Gambling has traditionally been the responsibility of the provinces, which have overseen lotteries and brick-and-mortar casinos within their borders. Most of the hundreds of websites offering casino and sports betting to Canadians exist in exotic international locales far beyond the provinces’ jurisdictions. And the federal criminal code offers little guidance when it comes to internet gambling.
“The criminal code was written decades ago, and these provisions with respect to gaming were drafted in the 1960s and haven’t really been updated since,” says lawyer Chad Finkelstein, a gaming law expert who has advised casino operators. “These provisions were not drafted with anything remotely resembling the internet ever contemplated. So we have outdated, antiquated provisions, which makes it difficult to apply to a modern gaming business.”
ESPN’s Gene Wojciechowski said that “Kansas State has a better chance to win the Super Bowl than the Raiders ending up in (Las Vegas).”
An oddsmaker said the Raiders potential move to Las Vegas shouldn’t present any point-shaving concerns.
But what are they and the league afraid of? Is there any functional, practical reason that a franchise in Las Vegas makes a point-fixing scandal more likely?
“No, absolutely not,” said Sinisi. “In fact, if you were of the ilk to try to do something like that, you would be more apt to do it in an obscure location rather than here in the middle of the gambling [capital]. Because the alarms would go off here real quick.”
What sort of alarms?
“It would be betting patterns. All of a sudden where a game [point spread] moves from 3 to 3½ to 4 to 4½ to 5 for no reason.”
But the actual corruption of players can happen anywhere and college basketball, not pro football, has been the most logical target over the years: One or two good players can control the outcome. Plenty of kids from poor backgrounds are directly involved. They are, at least legally, unpaid by their teams, and looking for cash.
A sports betting “expert” was arrested on multiple felony warrants in Indianapolis last week. Christopher Price, also known as 59 Theorem, used to call in to contribute his sports betting advice on the Dan Dakich show.
According a probable cause, Price raped his ex-girlfriend and threatened to send sexual videos and pictures to her friends, the Carmel school where she worked, and to an amateur porn site.
In an interview with police, Price denied raping the woman but admitted to putting a pillow over her face and to telling her that he was going to send the videos and pictures to her workplace.
“Yeah, I’m a (expletive),” Price told police.
Police found Price used multiple phones to harass the woman, and posed as a female friend of Price.
He was charged with intimidation and harassment, but court records show Price failed to appear in court in June 2014 and a warrant was issued for his arrest.
In February 2015, Price was charged with theft and fraud of a financial institution in Hamilton County for executing a scheme to obtain money by posing as a worker with Renew Services.
Records show a warrant was issued for Price in February 2015.
Price is also accused of stealing an umbrella from a department store and possession of controlled substances, both 2014 cases in which Price failed to appear.
The WestGate Las Vegas SuperBook released their NFL season win totals following the NFL draft.
Cantor Gaming is working on futures for NFL teams to make the playoffs and college football win totals which should be available between this week and next week.
Working on NFL Yes/No will make playoffs for all 32 teams will be released this week at all @CGTechnology_ sports books
— Matthew Holt (@MatthewHoltUSI) May 2, 2016
Working on College football season win totals for the Power 5 conferences and UNLV, Nevada, etc.. Should be out next week @CGTechnology_
— Matthew Holt (@MatthewHoltUSI) May 2, 2016