SuperBook launches $5,000 NFL pick contest; Penn. House passes gambling expansion bill

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. 

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The Westgate Las Vegas SuperBook will introduce a new NFL contest this fall with a $5,000 entry fee.

After a record 1,854 entries in 2016 — the seventh straight year that the number of entries has increased — the SuperContest is adding a new higher-end competition: SuperContest Gold.

The new handicapping contest will be similar to the regular SuperContest in which SuperContestants pay $1,500 to enter and make five against-the-spread picks a week on NFL games, with a few differences.

The biggest one? SuperContest Gold costs $5,000 to enter.

The others:

— No administrative fee taken out for SuperContest Gold (an 8 percent rake is taken out on the regular SuperContest).

— Winner-take-all, instead of top 50 entries cashing. No tiebreakers or aggregate bonuses.

— Only one entry per person.


The Pennsylvania House of Representatives approved a gambling expansion bill Wednesday night.

The Pennsylvania House of Representatives on Wednesday night passed sprawling gambling legislation, unveiled just hours earlier, to expand casino-style gambling to the internet, airports, bars and elsewhere in a move that could shape how the state government deals with its deficit-riddled finances this summer.

The bill was marshaled by Republican majority leaders toward the floor vote, a last-ditch move to raise hundreds of millions of dollars from taxes and license fees to help prop up, if temporarily, the state’s threadbare treasury. The bill represents perhaps Pennsylvania’s biggest gambling expansion since it legalized casinos in 2004, a law that made it the nation’s No. 2 commercial casino revenue state.

It passed narrowly, 102-89, less than a year after similar legislation failed in the House. The vote capped years of unsuccessful efforts by some lawmakers to bring legal gambling to bars.

 

The bill would regulate daily fantasy sports, but would tax gross revenue at 19 percent.

DFS language is very likely to survive in the final version of the gaming bill. The question will be whether common ground can be found between the two chambers on all the other gaming matters. The VGTs represent a large gap between the House and the Senate. It’s believed the upper chamber has no interest in those provisions.

If they can’t find middle ground on VGTs and everything else, DFS legalization and regulation might not happen in Pennsylvania this year.


The Connecticut legislature passed a bill that would set up a regulatory structure in the event of the federal government legalizing sports betting.

The bill passed the state Senate later in the day — the final scheduled day of the legislative session. It must still be signed by the governor.

Meanwhile, it does not appear that there is any late movement on a bill to legalize daily fantasy sports in the state.