New Jersey takes in $16.4M in first 2 weeks; FanDuel to open sportsbook at Meadowlands

New Jersey took in $16.4 million in sports betting action in the first two weeks legal betting was available.

The Garden State took in over $16.4 million in bets from June 14-30, winning just under $3.5 million, for a hold percentage — the amount the house keeps of the amount wagered — of 7.8 percent. Sports betting generated just under $300,000 in tax revenue for the state during that stretch.

“Handle has been really strong,” said MGM vice president of race and sports Jay Rood, who oversees the sportsbook at the Borgata Hotel Casino in Atlantic City. “We haven’t seen a drop-off after the first couple of days. It continues to be strong. We’re pretty happy with what’s going on.”


FanDuel sportsbook will open tomorrow at the Meadowlands Racetrack.

FanDuel announced Thursday that it will open a 5,300-square-foot sportsbook with 10 tellers and 27 televisions at the Meadowlands Racetrack this weekend. The New Jersey location is adjacent to MetLife Stadium, where the New York Giantsand Jets play.

“We’re hoping to be able to coordinate with [the Giants and Jets] so that their customers, if they get there early and want to make a bet, they could [come to the sportsbook] and then we could shuttle them to the stadium,” said Jeff Gural, chairman and CEO of Meadowlands Racing and Entertainment, which owns the track.


Derek Stevens will launch his own sportsbook at The D and Golden Gate casinos in downtown Las Vegas.

I was pleased to hear Derek Stevens, owner of The D and Golden Gate casinos downtown, has begun the process to start his own sportsbook operation and I was even more pleased to see he gave Matt Metcalf the sportsbook director position to get the wheels in motion. The D and Golden Gate both currently offer William Hill odds and will continue to do so over the next few months.

Stevens said the William Hill relationship has been incredible, but it’s time to have his own book as the downtown expansion continues. He owns the cleared space where the Las Vegas Club used to be and he’s going to be building something amazing down there.


NBA Commisioner Adam Silver admitted the league hasn’t made much progress with its integrity fee lobbying efforts.

“There was a dual presentation. One was on the state of the law and what’s happening across the country. There’s roughly 20 states in some stage of passing legalized sports betting, so there was a state-by-state update on where those things stand and what the particular law will mean to the NBA.

“Related to that is the so-called integrity fee or royalty that the league has talked about. Frankly it’s not a place where we’ve made a lot of progress. It’s one of the issues we’re talking to states about.”


The Wall Street Journal produced a video about in-play betting.


MLB will get into the crypto game with digital collectibles.

And now MLB is following suit. In MLB Crypto Baseball, users will pay in ether to buy digital avatars tied to specific moments in recent games. They can then sell the items, or in some cases, earn rewards and stickers. The game is a decentralized app, or “dApp.”

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Each Friday, 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. 

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