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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Yesterday, the Raiders applied for trademarks to use “Las Vegas Raiders” and released renderings of a stadium near the Las Vegas strip.
None of this means a Raiders’ move is any closer to reality—we already know Mark Davis wants a new stadium or to get the hell out of Oakland, and the mean ol’ NFL won’t let him go to Los Angeles, and he doesn’t have to money to build a new place on his own—but these are two moves that, if the Las Vegas Raiders ever exist, were going to have to happen.
ESPN’s Outside the Lines and ESPN the Magazine collaborated on a feature about the rise and fall of daily fantasy sports.
But as quickly as it boomed, the industry bottomed. One year after their headiest moments, FanDuel and DraftKings are still not profitable. Both privately held companies’ valuations have been sliced — by more than half, according to some estimates. The companies have hemorrhaged tens of millions of dollars in legal and lobbying expenses. (DraftKings’ attorneys fees once ran as high as $1 million per week.) And the fog bank of the industry’s uncertain future has made it nearly impossible for either company to raise new money. (FanDuel’s auditors have raised “significant doubts” about the company’s future if more states do not declare daily fantasy sports legal.) Three federal grand juries — in Boston, New York and Tampa, Florida — have alerted one or both companies that they are under criminal investigation. A merger — once unthinkable to many — is on the table.
It has been, by any measure, a spectacular fall.
The NHL has hired Sportsradar to watch for suspicious gambling activity ahead of the league’s planned expansion to Las Vegas.
Andreas Krannich, Sportradar’s managing director of strategy and integrity, said discussions with the NHL began last year when the company became the data distribution partner for the league. Sportradar also has integrity deals with the International Ice Hockey Federation and German Ice Hockey League.
“You would be surprised how far this cancer is already in sport,” he said. “There’s already international organized crime looking into this topic.”
A man who operated an illegal sports betting scheme in North Dakota is suing the IRS.
Gerald Greenfield clams the IRS overestimated his tax liability by tens of thousands of dollars in 2007 and 2008. Greenfield wants a federal judge to order the return of seized financial records so he can file amended tax returns.
The New York Daily News re-published an article about Pete Rose being banned from baseball for gambling on Wednesday, which was the event’s 27th anniversary.
The agreement reportedly hammered out yesterday afternoon in Commissioner A. Bartlett Giamatti’s Manhattan offices, includes no denial or admission of guilt for Rose, who has been accused, among other things, of betting on his own team.