House OKs Retooled Betting Sports Plan

House OKs Retooled Betting Sports Plan
ESPN.com news services
A reworked sports betting bill passed the Delaware House of Representatives last week, greatly improving the odds that the First State will become the only state east of the Mississippi to allow legal gambling on sporting events.
An earlier version of the bill that would have authorized sports betting fell two votes short of a needed three-fifths majority. But the proposal, backed by Gov. Jack Markell as a means to address the state's fiscal crisis, was amended to address some concerns of the state's three racetrack/casinos.
"My administration worked with the leadership in the house and senate to get this done," Markell said in a prepared statement. "We never stopped fighting to do what was right for the taxpayers of Delaware."
Under the new proposal, the racetrack/casinos will eventually be allowed to conduct table games -- currently, only slot machines and other electronic gaming are allowed -- and will see a larger share of sports betting revenues than what was initially proposed.
The reworked bill passed the House 30-4. It still requires passage in the state Senate and Markell's signature to become law.
Markell said the current proposal bill will bring in an estimated $52 million in fiscal 2010, but added that could increase if table games are running by early next year, according to The News Journal of Wilmington. Markell is already proposing an 8 percent wage decrease for state workers as Delaware deals with budget woes.
Major sports leagues and the NCAA have opposed the proposal. Delaware, which briefly experimented with a sports lottery in the 1970s, is one of four states grandfathered under a 1992 law that bars states from establishing legal sports betting. Montana, Oregon and Nevada are the others.


House OKs Retooled Betting Sports Plan

Win Big at Online Betting Sports

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Legal or illegal, Betting Sports is still big business

Legal or illegal, Betting Sports is still big business
China's lottery could topple those of the United States and become the world's first hundred billion dollar lottery, according to China Center for Lottery Studies at Peking University.
It has the potential to grow more than tenfold from its current level of $15 billion sales with more than 100 million players to one worth $150 billion.
Wang Xuehong, executive director of the China Center for Lottery Studies and a senior research fellow, Ministry of Finance, said the China Lottery has huge potential for growth, if it could capture some of the illicit gaming market.
"The challenge has to be to win back the 300 billion yuan spent on illegal lottery games and that is where a lot of China's immediate lottery growth could come from,” she said.
"This can be achieved by making a lot of the China lottery games more exciting and interesting to play. I think if this can be done then China's lottery could easily grow to a thousand billion yuan in a relatively short time frame."
If China's lottery was to grow to $150 billion, it would be almost three times the size of that of the combined state lotteries of the United States, the world's largest lottery market, which generated sales of $53.7 billion in 2007, according to US lottery games giant Scientific Games.
It would dwarf those of Italy with annual sales of $21.1 billion, Spain with $14.7 billion, France with $13.7 billion and the United Kingdom with $9.6 billion.
It would also be of equivalent size to the entire economic output of countries such as Egypt and New Zealand.
There has been speculation within the global lottery industry that the Chinese government could be set to issue a third major lottery license, its first in 15 years, to raise revenue for cultural and educational projects.
A new license would coincide with the drafting of China's first Lottery Act, which received the backing of the State Council last week.
Gary Newman, chairman and chief executive officer of Global Lottery Corporation (GLC), based in Las Vegas, Nevada, one of the world's leading lottery technology providers, said talk of a new license in China is currently the major talking point in the world's lottery industry.
"It will be dramatic. Rumors are all out there to lottery service providers that a third license has been issued and it is a national license,” he said.
"We have heard they (the Chinese government) want to go the cellular route. It would mean a person's cell phone would be a retail lottery terminal and it would open up big revenue streams for the government."
A government source, however, told China Daily there was no plans for a third license to be issued.
A move towards being able to play the lottery on mobile phones would be a logical move for the Chinese government, however.
One of the big problems for the existing lottery, which has been running for 22 years, is the relatively small number of participants.

Last year, China's lottery amassed revenues of just $15.6 billion (105.1 billion yuan), compared to an estimated $45 billion (300 billion yuan) spent on illegal lotteries and around $150 billion (1.03 trillion yuan) spent in total on illegal forms of betting.
It is estimated that only 18 percent of China's 1.3 billion people have ever played the lottery and the fact that there are 500 million mobile phone users in China would considerably widen the access.
Newman at GLC, which has offices in San Diego, Vancouver, London and Hong Kong, said he believes cellular is a potential way forward for China.
"The key advantage would be speed, ease and the fact that almost everyone has got a cellphone. There are real problems in such a vast country of doing it through retail outlets since it is immensely expensive," he said.
Tang Namei, a 25-year-old financial manager who lives in Shenzhen and is a regular lottery player, said she would welcome other distribution channels to play the lottery.
"I would play the lottery on my mobile phone if I was too busy to go and buy a ticket because it would be more convenient," she said.
Some such as Huang Yi, 27, a bank accountant from Luxian County in Sichuan province, would still prefer the security of a paper ticket.
"I don't like the idea of playing the lottery on my mobile phone because I like the security and certainty of being able to hold onto a ticket," he said.
China issued the first license for a welfare lottery in 1987 and a second one for sports in 1994.
Wang, who studied gaming management at the University of Nevada in Reno and is involved in drafting China's Lottery Act, said she believes that if China's lottery is to grow and develop it needs the right regulatory framework in place.
"If the lottery is to grow, much depends on the policy of the government. Sometimes decisions can be taken overnight which are not based on either the industry's or the market's needs and there is a need for a much longer-term approach," she said.
"If there are the right laws in place, people feel confident playing the lottery and this leads to greater consumer confidence among players," she said.
The lottery has been a consistent revenue earner for the government. The sports lottery, which celebrated its 15th anniversary this month, provided $400m (2.75 billion yuan) toward last year's Beijing Olympics. It has also funded 8,728 park-based fitness areas, 132 fitness centers and 12 sports parks under China's national fitness program.
Wang Jun, deputy director of the China General Administration of Sport, said it had made a major contribution to sports.
"Without the public welfare fund from the sports lottery, we won't be having such excellent fitness facilities for the ordinary citizens in such a short time," he said.
"It serves as a strong impetus in our effort to let ordinary Chinese do exercise and keep healthy."
Wang at the China Center for Lottery Studies insisted this sort of funding would massively increase if the lottery was made more exciting for players.
"If it doesn't come up with interesting games then people will graduate to the illegal lottery and other forms of gambling," she said.
"There needs to be more products provided to the market. There always needs to be more advertising and promoting of the lottery."
"The key change, however, needs to be in the distribution network. It needs to be enhanced and made better and become much more market-orientated."
For Chinese lottery players, however, winning is everything. Tang, the financial manager from Shenzhen, said she still hopes to win the jackpot one day.
"I have been buying welfare tickets for a year and got several 10 yuan prizes, although a colleague of mine won a big prize a couple of weeks ago. I'll keep buying until some day I win the jackpot," she said.


Legal or illegal, Betting Sports is still big business

A New Chance for Online Betting Sports in the U.S.

A New Chance for Online Betting Sports in the U.S.
By ERIC PFANNER
New York Times
PARIS — Is online gambling coming in from the cold?
When the U.S. Congress cracked down on Internet betting in 2006, the big, publicly traded European companies that had dominated the business closed up shop in the United States. Growth in the booming industry shifted away from these companies, once the darlings of the stock market, to private operators in offshore locations like Antigua and the Isle of Man.
But now, executives of some of the European companies whisper excitedly that they may soon get a second chance in the United States. Meanwhile, a number of European countries that have long maintained barriers are moving, under pressure from regulators, to legalize, and tax, online gambling.
“There’s still a lot of gambling going on, where there’s no revenue coming in to the governments,” said Gavin Kelleher, an analyst at the research firm H2 Gambling Capital in Ireland. “They realize they could use the revenue.”
The biggest potential change would be in the United States, where, perhaps within days, Representative Barney Frank, Democrat of Massachusetts, is expected to introduce legislation aimed at overturning the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act.
“He supports the repeal and wants to move forward on it,” said Steve Adamske, communications director for the House Financial Services Committee, of which Mr. Frank is chairman.
Mr. Frank tried and failed to do so once before, in 2007. But advocates of liberalization think they might get a friendlier hearing in Washington this time around. President Barack Obama, they note, boasted of his poker prowess during the election campaign. And the Democrats, who are seen as less hostile to Internet gambling than the Republicans, have tightened their grip on Congress.
A study by PricewaterhouseCoopers says the U.S. government could raise more than $50 billion over 10 years from taxes on legalized online gambling.
“I’d be amazed if it didn’t happen over the next two or three years,” said Clive Hawkswood, chief executive of the Remote Gambling Association, a trade group based in London. “It’s just a question of what exactly the regulations will say.”
Some analysts say that may be getting a little bit ahead of the game. Opponents of a repeal, including the Christian Coalition of America and the National Football League, have vowed to fight any new effort to end the ban.
Michele Combs, a spokeswoman for the Christian Coalition, said the group was gearing up for a “massive campaign” of letter-writing and lobbying to try to prevent any loosening of the law.
“We’re not saying people shouldn’t go to Las Vegas,” she said. “But when it’s in your home, it’s too easy. It breaks up families.”
U.S. sports leagues, meanwhile, worry that the ease of online betting increases the chances of game-fixing. Even the most bullish advocates of online gambling acknowledge that Internet sports betting — as opposed to poker or casino games — is highly unlikely to be legalized.
“There’s a better chance now for some sort of gaming legislation to be approved,” said Nick Batram, an analyst at KBC Peel Hunt, a brokerage firm in London. “But it took longer than expected to put anti-gaming legislation in place, and it will probably will take longer than expected to remove it.”
Since the 2006 law was passed, North America, once the biggest market, has been passed by Europe and Asia, according to figures from H2 Gambling Capital. The law makes it illegal for financial institutions to handle payments to online gambling sites. But enough people have found ways around it, some by using overseas payment processors, to ensure that online gambling remains a thriving business. H2 says online gambling generated revenue of $6 billion last year in North America, more than a quarter the global total of $22.6 billion, up from $17.6 billion in 2006.
Pulling out of the United States cost PartyGaming about three-quarters of its business. Its position as the biggest online poker provider has been taken over by PokerStars, a privately held operator based on the Isle of Man.
This month, PartyGaming agreed to a $105 million settlement with the U.S. attorney’s office in New York, involving the period before 2006, when it acknowledged that its activities had been “contrary to certain U.S. laws.” In turn, the U.S. authorities agreed not to prosecute the company, which is listed on the London Stock Exchange, or its executives.
The agreement fueled speculation that PartyGaming might be trying to position itself for a return to the U.S. market, if online gambling were legalized.
Analysts say one possibility for European companies like PartyGaming, should the ban be lifted, would be to form partnerships with American casino operators. That would allow the European companies to share their online expertise. Operating alone, they might struggle to obtain licenses, given their history of run-ins with U.S. law enforcement, analysts said.
“It’s my feeling that even if the market were opened up, the U.S. government, in a palatable way, would probably find a way to give local companies a favorable position,” Mr. Batram said.
So far, Las Vegas executives have maintained a cautious stance about legalization of online gambling. Steve Wynn, chief executive of Wynn Resorts, said in an e-mail message that he thought it would be “impossible to regulate.”
“Even though it would be a benefit to our company, we are strongly opposed,” he said.
But speculation that Las Vegas casino operators were looking into the possibilities was fueled by recent reports that Harrah’s Entertainment, which owns Caesars Palace and other casinos, recently hired Mitch Garber, former chief executive of PartyGaming, for an unspecified role. Harrah’s did not return calls.
Mr. Ryan said that PartyGaming planned to focus on acquisition opportunities to increase its market share in Europe and elsewhere, something that was difficult as long as investors were worried about the U.S. litigation. “We think Mr. Frank’s efforts are quite meaningful to the sector,” he said.
Several other online gambling companies whose shares are traded in London, including 888 Holdings and Sportingbet, are still in talks with the U.S. Justice Department. Analysts expect them, along with companies like Bwin International, whose stock is traded in Vienna, to be involved in a round of consolidation in the industry — along with a possible eventual move back into the United States.
As they await developments in Washington, online gambling companies are looking for growth in Europe and Asia. Under pressure from regulators in Brussels, several European Union members, including France, Italy, Spain and Denmark, have been moving to legalize some kinds of online gambling, turning it into a regulated and taxed business. Britain was the first big European country to do so, in 2005.
Other countries, like Germany, Greece and the Netherlands, continue to hold out, though, in what the European Commission sees as an effort to protect government-sponsored gambling monopolies from private competition.
The commission in March published a report arguing that the United States was violating World Trade Organization rules by keeping out European online gambling companies, given that online betting on horse racing is permitted in the United States. But the commission said that it favored negotiations, rather than legal action, to end the dispute.
Also in March, however, the European Parliament adopted a separate measure supporting the right of individual E.U. member states to make their own rules on online gambling.
“It’s interesting that the European Commission is telling the U.S. it’s persecuting European companies when it can’t even get its own house sorted out,” Mr. Batram said.


A New Chance for Online Betting Sports in the U.S.

Betting Forum Sports: New Book focuses on internet gambling

Betting Forum Sports: New Book focuses on internet gambling
The future of sports broadcasting encapsulated, on to gambling. A fine book has just come out (and if there is one thing that you need to survive The Crucible it is a fine book) called Free Money by Declan Lynch in which the author details, bet by bet, a year spent gambling on the internet. Like many brought up in the days when betting shops were required by law to be decorated like a circle of hell, Lynch has not lost his "sense of wonder that something so brilliant and so potentially catastrophic can be available in his own home to every man who can get himself an internet connection and a credit card".
Interleaving his bets with entertaining anecdotes on how he became a keen gambler, and what that means, Lynch's book cracks along at a merry pace. But it soon reveals its remorseless side in the sheer accumulation of bets that are made in order to win or lose increasingly insignificant (in terms of time spent to secure them) amounts. That is often the downside of gambling, not the amount one loses but the amount of time wasted limiting those losses. Lynch closes his book with a quote from Girolamo Cardano, author, in the 1560s, of Liber Di Ludo Aleae, "the greatest advantage in gambling lies in not playing at all". Easy to say in the mid-16th century when the incitements to play were limited by there being neither internet gambling nor red-button viewing.



Betting Forum Sports: New Book focuses on internet gambling

Betting Sports Tip: Ping Pong will gain popularity quickly in U.S.

Betting Sports Tip: Ping Pong will gain popularity quickly in U.S.
By MATTHEW FUTTERMAN
Walled Street Journal
A group of sports and entertainment marketers is betting ping pong will be the next game to sweep the nation, and Anheuser-Busch InBev's U.S. unit is getting into the action.
Anheuser-Busch, one of the biggest advertisers in the U.S., has signed on as the lead sponsor of the Bud Light Hard Bat Ping Pong Tournament, which started last month.
The big brewer is backing Robert Friedman, president of media and entertainment for New York commercial-production company Radical Media, and several major partners, who think ping pong could be the next Texas Hold 'Em, the card game featured in the highly successful World Series of Poker.
The nostalgia factor, made keener by the recession, is one reason they are confident of ping pong's appeal. "This is about the residual goodwill we all feel for the better times we grew up with," says Mr. Friedman. "This conjures up family."
As the idea for the new tourney began to jell, Anheuser-Busch was re-evaluating, and even shedding, several longtime deals with athletes and major sports teams. It removed the familiar Budweiser sign from atop Chicago's Wrigley Field and ended a 30-year relationship with drag-racing legend Kenny Bernstein.

In came ping pong. With exclusive sponsorships for mainstream teams and sports becoming ever more expensive, Anheuser-Busch needed to strike a balance. Keith Levy, the brewer's vice president of marketing, says his company has to do big, brand-building campaigns attached to major events and teams, but also reach beer drinkers at the grass-roots level.
"Bud Light has always been a fun brand," Mr. Levy says. "This fits in with what we've done with it in the past."
More is at stake than fun, however. The brains and the money behind the tournament come not just from Anheuser-Busch and Radical Media but also from Mark Gordon Co., which produces "Grey's Anatomy" and other hits, and FremantleMedia Enterprises, producer of "American Idol," which see it as a potentially major moneymaker.
"Table tennis is ripe for reinvention," says Keith Hindle, executive vice president of London-based Fremantle, who foresees a variety of revenue streams from live ping-pong events, branded merchandise, sponsorships and league memberships.
The organizers know they have to come up with an innovative approach to televising a game that in the past has been hard to follow because of the speed and the size of the ball. Even if they can, could this really be the next poker?
Poker already had a long-established mystique, built on images of high rollers in deluxe Las Vegas hotel suites, before Internet gambling and the World Series of Poker inspired a wider appreciation of the mental calculations taking place around the table behind low-brimmed caps and sunglasses.
Ping pong, by contrast, is more closely associated with suburban basements and harsh fluorescent lights. Even so, the International Olympic Committee says table tennis is the world's leading participation sport, with 40 million competitive players world-wide and tens of millions more playing for fun.
Hard-bat ping pong is played with old-style wooden paddles covered with dimpled rubber that produce an unmistakable knocking sound. They also make for a slower game with longer rallies than the foam or sponge paddles that yield the fast-paced, spin-crazy brand of table tennis in which most points end within a few shots. Using the hard-bat paddles levels the playing field, giving a standout barroom player a chance to topple a pro, especially with the handicap system the Bud Light tournament will use.
Competition started in March, with local Anheuser-Busch distributors supplying Bud Light-branded ping pong tables to some 4,600 bars where regional competitions are under way. Winners can land an invitation to the tournament finals and play for the $100,000 prize in Las Vegas in late June. K-Swiss, the tennis outfitter, has agreed to be the official clothing and footwear supplier for the event.
That event, which will also include professionals, will be the focus of a two-hour television special that the organizers plan to air on Walt Disney's ESPN in September.
Mr. Friedman and Jordan Wynn, executive of Mark Gordon Co., say they noticed ping pong re-emerging in popular culture over the past year. The posse on the HBO series "Entourage" played during an episode, for example, and hip-hop star 50 Cent had a ping-pong theme at his birthday party.
"The question was could we take this game out of the basement and the cluttered garages," says Mr. Friedman. "We think the timing is just right."
Mr. Wynn goes so far as to suggest ping pong has sex appeal. "It's taking on this cool cultural space of short-shorts and retro headbands, and it's kind of goofy, but it's also got people who take it very seriously," Mr. Wynn says. "It's poker eight years ago."


Betting Sports Tip: Ping Pong will gain popularity quickly in U.S.

Online Betting Sports Now Family Entertainment

Online Betting Sports Now Family Entertainment
To win over the odds, using only your intelligence and basic instincts…To live on intuition, it's a process that gets the blood flowing and a sense of wonder when you finally beat that downward trend. To start this experience you can open an online-betting account, and start betting immediately on just about anything. If you start winning, you can withdraw your winnings instantly to your credit card by pressing a button.
Things have come a long way since the days when you actually had to go to a bit of trouble to get to some side-street bookie's office, and hand over real money to make your bet. There was nothing that might encourage you to linger or to have a pleasant experience. This was generally the domain of men, the days are gone when it took a fair amount of guts to go downtown and find a card game in a smoked filled, cigar chewing, whiskey drinking sort of place. Now the online gaming experience can take the form of a well lit living room with your cup of tea next to you and a firm grip on the mouse.
The urge to gamble is being facilitated at every turn by the interplay between sports, television, and online betting, a devastatingly powerful combination. Many sports are now sponsored by betting corporations, and are televised almost entirely for betting purposes.
Mother can now play a friendly game of bingo, Dad can bet on his favourite sports team and the kids can learn how to be a poker champions before puberty wears off. It sounds like family entertainment to most of us. A sage with some obvious wisdom once said, 'The subject of gambling is all-encompassing. It combines man's natural play instinct with his desire to know about his fate and his future.'




Online Betting Sports Now Family Entertainment