Sports Betting in Delaware?

[wiley5]

Sports betting in state could work, panel told

By JAMES MERRIWEATHER
Dover Bureau reporter
11/14/2002

Neither federal law nor the state constitution pose barriers to a properly structured, state-run sports betting operation, an attorney told a Delaware task force studying the topic Wednesday.

Because the state is exempt from a federal law prohibiting sports betting, it probably would be complying with the law as long as it structures any sports betting operation to meet the state constitution's definition of lottery, said William E. Manning, a Wilmington lawyer jointly retained by the state's three racetrack slots machine operators.

Essentially, that means that the sports betting operation must be owned and run by the state to benefit the state's treasury and include games "in which chance rather than the skill of the player is the predominating factor," Manning said.

He said a game in which a player was allowed to simply pick the Philadelphia Eagles over the Green Bay Packers, for example, would not pass muster. But Manning interprets case law to say that the test probably would be met by adding a point spread that must be covered by the winning team and a demonstration that even the most savvy players lose more often than they win.

The move toward sports betting took on a new urgency with the election last week of two new border-state governors - Robert Ehrlich in Maryland and Ed Rendell in Pennsylvania - who intend to push for laws that would allow slot machines at racetracks in their states.

Such slot machines could cost Delaware 20 percent to 50 percent of its slots players, one recent study by the Delaware slots industry estimated. Delaware's budget currently receives about $200 million a year from its 35 percent share of slots revenues.

Sports betting, however, could help the state keep its customers, supporters said. Although the federal government outlawed the practice in 1992, it granted exemptions to Delaware and three other states that had previous experience with sports betting: Oregon, Montana and Nevada, the only state that allows betting on sports events now.

As the governors' races in the two nearby states were shaping up in June, Rep. William A. Oberle Jr., R-Beechers Lot, sponsor of the resolution that created the task force, said he intended to offer legislation to authorize sports betting in Delaware. He reaffirmed that position Wednesday.

Denis McGlynn, president of Dover Downs Gaming and Entertainment and a task force member, said Maryland and Pennsylvania are expected to move quickly on slot machine laws. Those laws could allow racetrack operators to start slot machine gambling at eight tracks, creating competition for casinos at Delaware Park, Dover Downs and Harrington Raceway.

"The expectation is that [Pennsylvania] will start with casinos and move on to bigger riverboat gambling, perhaps within a year or two," McGlynn said.

The meeting of the 10-member task force was the second of four it expects to hold before Jan. 15 - the date its report to the Delaware General Assembly is due. The next meeting is set for 11:30 a.m. Nov. 26, at Legislative Hall.

Most of the discussion Wednesday concerned Manning's legal opinion, which noted that Delaware's federal exemption stemmed from an ill-fated experience with betting on professional football in 1976. That was the first state-run sports lottery in the country.

The operation lasted just one football season because bettors abandoned the game in droves after the state - fearing it would not have money to cover the bets - called off all bets for one weekend, Manning said.

The feared disaster never developed and the state honored the tickets, but the damage had been done.

Long after the game was canceled, the state won a lawsuit by the National Football League, which wanted the game stopped.

Delaware's experiment with the Scorecard game was enough to win it a "grandfather" exemption when Congress banned sports betting. But Michael Strine, chairman of Delaware's task force and a top aide to Finance Secretary David Singleton, said sports betting opponents maintain that any exemption covers betting on football games only.

Manning said, however, that he didn't share that opinion. He said the Senate Judiciary Committee noted explicitly that the language was not intended to bar states from allowing betting on sports that had not been featured before. The committee was headed at the time by Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del.

"I have a relatively great comfort level that those who crafted the law envisioned that Delaware, if it wanted to, could expand past football," Manning said.

Reach James Merriweather at 678-4273 or @delawareonline.com.

[lakerfan]

Thanks. Very interesting.

[scott]

.....if I remember correctly it was a parlay type thing and they lasted one, mabey two weeks. Also, was Jimmy the Greek involved with the Deleware end of it?
ScottyS

[scott]

........Montana might be the best climate for sports betting. Oregon & Delware both limit it to a lottery where they take any skill out of it. I may be wrong here but in Montana it's player vs player. Montana has at times been a big gambling state.
ScottyS

[dasultanofswat]

oregon uses football parlay cards..

[Bobby C]

"...a demonstration that even the most savvy players lose more often than they win."

THAT would be legal? Raking so much out of the pot (say, 50%), that no one could overcome it?

Where I come from, that's called "usury".

Jay Cohen held 4.55%, and he's behind bars.

Bobby

[wiley5]

I'll have to talk to my State Rep, she live two blocks down the street to see if it has any support. It would be sweet if they had sports betting at the race tracks in DE, since Delaware Park is building a golf course that is supposed to be completed late next summer, although there is barely any grass on the course at the present.

[thebuddah]

thanks for the enlightenment.