Sports Betting Forum: Online Games of Luck Keep Risk Takers at Their PC’s
Almost all risk takers should have discovered the phrase “offshore sports betting,” but a few may not be entirely sure what it alludes to. A foreign betting site in effect functions exterior to the rule of any particular country or alternatively it can also mean a computer accessible sports betting website that places its file servers inside the boundaries of a land in which internet based sports gaming is not at this time outlawed. Briefly, therefore, it’s best described as a wagering business active extraneous of the dominion of the country of the purchaser. Internet based gambling sites are by and large governed with the help of 3 institutions. These are titled OSGA (the Offshore Gaming Association), IGC (Interactive Gaming Council) and the Fidelity Trust Gaming Association (the FTGA).
The OSGA are a self ruling watch-dog office which presently oversees the current offshore sports betting business, they endeavor to also grant gamers the means to readily identify dependable organizations to play games on, without stress. It strives to champion the concerns of customers, additionally they do not levy any affiliation costs.
The association is a professional and objective third party company which voices unbiased viewpoints, indicated by customer feedback, unbiased investigation, phone conversations, inside information and in addition offers inside gossip.
The IGC is a non-commercially driven organization. The agency was designed to supply an arena for worried participants to discuss subjects and in addition to advance common concerns in the world-wide interactive sports gambling industry, to establish equitable and stable commercial standards and habits that endeavor to improve consumer faith in interactive sports gambling merchandise and services, also to serve as the sports gaming industry’s global strategy advocate and the IGC also functions as a data depot.
The Interactive Gaming Council have built a reputation for developing trustworthiness, candor also plausibility thanks to the industry ethics it displays, and its appeal for honorable sports gambling sites. The IGC regulates overseas gambling by applying a unique ten-point code of conduct and in addition bills sports gaming sites a fee to feature their logo. Frustrated gamers can, if they wish, state any of their conflicts to the Interactive Gaming Council.
The Fidelity Trust Gaming Association was founded in order to create a standard to reform the procedures of on-line gambling operations. The IGC hope that through associating with reputable businesses, they are able to cultivate an alliance of the fairest and most professional cyberspace gaming operations worldwide.
So, these are agencies that manage the conduct exercised by networked sports betting and which should assist to alleviate some of the trepidation felt by doubters. Live sports gaming sites are nowadays entirely dependable, because personal details should not be submitted and in addition the recompense not to mention the odds are as uniform and fair as in a normal Vegas-type stake. These internet sites cut travel expenditure, but nevertheless preserve the basic essence, only now you can play at your own pace.
Sports Betting Forum: Online Games of Luck Keep Risk Takers at Their PC’s
Monday, April 27, 2009
Online Betting Sports On Its Way To Legalization In Switzerland
Online Betting Sports On Its Way To Legalization In Switzerland
By Ciara Trenton
Legal Casino News
Add Switzerland to the growing list of countries that are preparing to legalize and regulate online gambling. The country is readying to use the model from the UK to regulate the industry.
Online gambling in the UK is thriving because of laws that allow gaming operators to legally bring their product to the public. Some of the biggest online gambling companies in the world are located in the UK, and now Switzerland wants in on the action.
The online gaming industry is growing rapidly around the world, and Switzerland wants to be proactive in their approach to protecting their citizens. It is a stark contrast to the US government, which has been reactive to the online gaming boom.
In the US, the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act is stopping some of the largest and safest online operators to steer clear of the market. That has left US online players having to play at less reputable online sites that still accept their business.
Representative Barney Frank has vowed to introduce legislation that would overturn the UIGEA. The legislation is due soon, but with other pressing needs being attended to, the legislation may have to wait.
Interactive television and gambling over the telephone would still be illegal in Switzerland under the proposed plan. Internet sports’ gambling is currently legal in Switzerland, so adding the casinos and the poker gambling would not be too difficult.
Online Betting Sports On Its Way To Legalization In Switzerland
By Ciara Trenton
Legal Casino News
Add Switzerland to the growing list of countries that are preparing to legalize and regulate online gambling. The country is readying to use the model from the UK to regulate the industry.
Online gambling in the UK is thriving because of laws that allow gaming operators to legally bring their product to the public. Some of the biggest online gambling companies in the world are located in the UK, and now Switzerland wants in on the action.
The online gaming industry is growing rapidly around the world, and Switzerland wants to be proactive in their approach to protecting their citizens. It is a stark contrast to the US government, which has been reactive to the online gaming boom.
In the US, the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act is stopping some of the largest and safest online operators to steer clear of the market. That has left US online players having to play at less reputable online sites that still accept their business.
Representative Barney Frank has vowed to introduce legislation that would overturn the UIGEA. The legislation is due soon, but with other pressing needs being attended to, the legislation may have to wait.
Interactive television and gambling over the telephone would still be illegal in Switzerland under the proposed plan. Internet sports’ gambling is currently legal in Switzerland, so adding the casinos and the poker gambling would not be too difficult.
Online Betting Sports On Its Way To Legalization In Switzerland
A realistic look at Betting Sports: It's already rampant
A realistic look at Betting Sports: It's already rampant
By ISAAC SCHLECHT
DELAWARE VOICE
My roommate last semester at the University of Delaware, a Philadelphia native, has learned an awful lot about Delaware in the past few months. He's learned that we were the first state to ratify the constitution, the home of Bob Marley (for a little over a month), and that we're hurting just as much as any other state from the current economic downturn.
Delaware's historic budget shortfall is forcing our elected officials to make difficult decisions -- cutting employee salaries, raising fees and taxes and reducing the size and scope of government.
When I told him that the governor was considering the legalization of sports betting, a $55 million solution, his reaction was remarkable: "Oh, yeah, everyone does that." In fact, he was close to right. Jeff, down the hall, had $50 on Duke. His girlfriend, Katie, had just as much on Pittsburgh.
Sports betting is an everyday occurrence in the dorms of the University of Delaware. "In fact," my roommate told me, "I don't know anyone who loves the game who doesn't throw down a little money."
While its leadership shouts itself hoarse about the need to preserve the "integrity" of the game, the NCAA doesn't appear to realize that integrity would improve if sports gambling were made legal.
Players and teams don't engage in point shaving on a whim: They're caught up with illegal forces beyond their control, and resort to point shaving in order to sate bookies who very often maintain close ties to organized crime.
If sports betting were made legal, the real offenders behind the scandals that wracked Pete Rose in the late 1980's or the infamous Black Sox of 1919 would be easily caught, since players would have legal recourse to prosecute bookies who suggested illegal gaming.
States where sports betting is legal, like Nevada, maintain strict regulations and constant monitoring of the industry, eliminating the manipulation and trickery inherent in "underground" betting.
Dan Wetzel, one of the nation's foremost sports journalists, wrote this past Friday that "one of the best ways to guard against point shaving is to legalize and legitimize sports gambling," because regulation serves as a safety net, often with a fairly high proven rate of success. As Louis Brandeis famously wrote about a very different sort of crime, "sunlight is the best disinfectant."
Ironically, for an organization lead by a former Professor of Philosophy, Myles Brand, the NCAA masks a sizable core of hypocrisy beneath its external pretense of opposition to sports gambling. ESPN, the NCAA's primary network, publishes betting brackets and point spreads online and routinely discusses them on-air. Every year, NCAA teams play in the Las Vegas Bowl, and the NCAA holds a tournament slot for a team that wins a conference in Reno, Nevada.
The stark contradictions between bluster and reality in the NCAA are both logically inconsistent and morally unethical, concepts that I hope Mr. Brand would readily recognize.
Families up and down our state are hurting. Behind each dollar sign and decimal place, there are the faces and stories of real people who are counting on these $55 million for vital state services. There are students like myself, who need a world-class education to compete in the global marketplace of tomorrow. There are teachers and state employees who've dedicated their lives to public service and desperately need resources to continue their life's work. There are families of all walks of life whose need for police and fire protection hasn't dried up with the budget shortfall. The choice is clear. Our government is still shaking in the wake of the greatest economic downturn of my entire life, if not that of my parents as well. Legalizing sports betting will grant our state $55 million of revenue and drive problem gambling and point shaving out into the open, allowing for legal recourse and proper regulation.
The decisions that we make today have real dollar signs attached to them, and from here on out, the citizens of Delaware will use debate, discussion and dissent, the tools of democracy, to hammer out how we will make ends meet on a record-shattering $750 million budget shortfall. The NCAA's misplaced loyalties, shameful strong-arming and fallacy-ridden logic form no part of this democratic equation.
A realistic look at Betting Sports: It's already rampant
By ISAAC SCHLECHT
DELAWARE VOICE
My roommate last semester at the University of Delaware, a Philadelphia native, has learned an awful lot about Delaware in the past few months. He's learned that we were the first state to ratify the constitution, the home of Bob Marley (for a little over a month), and that we're hurting just as much as any other state from the current economic downturn.
Delaware's historic budget shortfall is forcing our elected officials to make difficult decisions -- cutting employee salaries, raising fees and taxes and reducing the size and scope of government.
When I told him that the governor was considering the legalization of sports betting, a $55 million solution, his reaction was remarkable: "Oh, yeah, everyone does that." In fact, he was close to right. Jeff, down the hall, had $50 on Duke. His girlfriend, Katie, had just as much on Pittsburgh.
Sports betting is an everyday occurrence in the dorms of the University of Delaware. "In fact," my roommate told me, "I don't know anyone who loves the game who doesn't throw down a little money."
While its leadership shouts itself hoarse about the need to preserve the "integrity" of the game, the NCAA doesn't appear to realize that integrity would improve if sports gambling were made legal.
Players and teams don't engage in point shaving on a whim: They're caught up with illegal forces beyond their control, and resort to point shaving in order to sate bookies who very often maintain close ties to organized crime.
If sports betting were made legal, the real offenders behind the scandals that wracked Pete Rose in the late 1980's or the infamous Black Sox of 1919 would be easily caught, since players would have legal recourse to prosecute bookies who suggested illegal gaming.
States where sports betting is legal, like Nevada, maintain strict regulations and constant monitoring of the industry, eliminating the manipulation and trickery inherent in "underground" betting.
Dan Wetzel, one of the nation's foremost sports journalists, wrote this past Friday that "one of the best ways to guard against point shaving is to legalize and legitimize sports gambling," because regulation serves as a safety net, often with a fairly high proven rate of success. As Louis Brandeis famously wrote about a very different sort of crime, "sunlight is the best disinfectant."
Ironically, for an organization lead by a former Professor of Philosophy, Myles Brand, the NCAA masks a sizable core of hypocrisy beneath its external pretense of opposition to sports gambling. ESPN, the NCAA's primary network, publishes betting brackets and point spreads online and routinely discusses them on-air. Every year, NCAA teams play in the Las Vegas Bowl, and the NCAA holds a tournament slot for a team that wins a conference in Reno, Nevada.
The stark contradictions between bluster and reality in the NCAA are both logically inconsistent and morally unethical, concepts that I hope Mr. Brand would readily recognize.
Families up and down our state are hurting. Behind each dollar sign and decimal place, there are the faces and stories of real people who are counting on these $55 million for vital state services. There are students like myself, who need a world-class education to compete in the global marketplace of tomorrow. There are teachers and state employees who've dedicated their lives to public service and desperately need resources to continue their life's work. There are families of all walks of life whose need for police and fire protection hasn't dried up with the budget shortfall. The choice is clear. Our government is still shaking in the wake of the greatest economic downturn of my entire life, if not that of my parents as well. Legalizing sports betting will grant our state $55 million of revenue and drive problem gambling and point shaving out into the open, allowing for legal recourse and proper regulation.
The decisions that we make today have real dollar signs attached to them, and from here on out, the citizens of Delaware will use debate, discussion and dissent, the tools of democracy, to hammer out how we will make ends meet on a record-shattering $750 million budget shortfall. The NCAA's misplaced loyalties, shameful strong-arming and fallacy-ridden logic form no part of this democratic equation.
A realistic look at Betting Sports: It's already rampant
Betting Sports Forum: Allowing Athletes In Casinos Not Gamble NCAA Should Take
Betting Sports Forum: Allowing Athletes In Casinos Not Gamble NCAA Should Take
By GORDON WHITE
Celebrations continue, and rightfully so, from Cape Hatteras to the Great Smoky Mountains. A National Championship is worth an extended revelry.
The North Carolina players did themselves proud with a dominance of the 71st National Collegiate Athletic Association Basketball Championship tournament not seen since the days of John Wooden's superb UCLA teams in the 1960s and 1970s.
The accolades showered down upon Tyler Hansbrough, Ty Lawson, Wayne Ellington, Danny Green, Deon Thompson, Ed Davis et al are well deserved. When totally healthy, this was by far the best team in the nation and proved it last Monday night in a game that, for all intents and purposes, was over in the first five minutes.
But before jumping on the Roy Williams band wagon to heap additional praise and superlatives on the Tar Heels' coach, I want a better explanation from him about just why he thinks it is "no big deal" to allow his players, coaches and himself to spend free time gambling. Few, if any other coaches in college basketball, would allow their players to gamble in the Detroit casinos that are so handy to anyone in Motown where the Final Four was held last week.
Does Roy Williams suffer from a severe case of nescience when it comes to gambling and basketball game fixing or is he somehow infected with an ostrich syndrome?
Ty Lawson, the Tar Heels' junior guard who was named Atlantic Coast Conference player of the year, said he won $250 shooting craps in one of those Detroit casinos.
Williams, who said he also gambled in a Detroit casino last week and last December when the Tar Heels played Michigan State during the regular season, said, "I have zero problems with Ty doing it. I went and did it myself."
Williams added, "If we don't want these kids doing it, don't put the Final Four in a city where the casino is 500 yards from our front door."
According to that school of thought, Williams, who probably does not want his players drinking while preparing for a National Championship game, would not allow basketball tournaments in cities with bars. There are very few of those cities in the United States, if any.
Jim Calhoun, the Connecticut coach, and Tom Izzo, the Michigan State coach, specifically forbade their players to enter any Detroit or neighboring Windsor, Ontario, casino, during the Final Four last month.
NCAA President, Myles Brand, said, "I warn against that slippery slope. We prefer not to regulate that. But it is highly discouraged."
The NCAA has rules against betting on sports events but not against individuals gambling with such as dice, cards or slot machines.
Does Roy Williams not recall the greatest of them all, Michael Jordan, who obvioUSly had a gambling problem that became quite a serious embarrassment to the NBA when he played professionally? Jordan is reported to have been a heavy poker player in his college days at Chapel Hill. Oh, but that was no big deal.
I wonder if Williams ever heard of Pete Rose or Art Schlichter, a couple of Ohio natives, who ended up in jail as a result of their sports gambling problems.
Schlichter was the Ohio State quarterback who regularly attended a ColumbUS race track to bet on the horses while his head coach, Earle Bruce, was also at that track betting on the nags. Remind you of Williams and Lawson gambling in a Detroit casino?
Under the Roy Williams' theory, Ohio State should move away from Columbus because the horse track was nearby to tempt athletes.
Maybe Williams should be reminded, also, of Salvatore Sollazzo, Jackie Goldsmith, Irving and Benjamin Schwartzberg, Nick and Tony Englises, Joe Benitende and Jack West. They were each sentenced to prison terms (8 to 16 years for Sollazzo) for their part in bribing college basketball players to fix games between 1947 and 1951.
Coach Williams might like to remember Sherman White of Long Island University, the Michael Jordan of his day, who was sentenced to one year in jail for dumping games while playing for the Blackbirds in 1949 and 1950. Maybe Williams never heard of Ed Warner, Ed Roman and Irwin Dambrot of City College; Gene Melchiorre of Bradley; Bill Waller of the University of Toledo, and many more who were arrested and charged in the 1951 college basketball fixing scandals.
District Attorney Frank Hogan of Manhattan arrested 32 players from seven colleges who fixed a total of 86 games between 1947 and 1950, according to reports. Most of these players appeared before and were sentenced by Judge Saul Streit of New York Supreme Court. He gave Sherman White the one-year sentence. White would have become the first NBA player to make $100,000 a year if he had not committed the crime.
Roy Williams would be well served to remember how Kentucky's great coach, Adolph Rupp, reacted when the fixing scandal first broke in January, 1951. Rupp claimed that his mighty Wildcats that won the NCAA championship in 1948 and 1949 could never be corrupted by fixers.
"They couldn't reach my boys with a 10-foot pole," said Rupp.
But nine months later on Oct. 20, 1951, Kentucky's Ralph Beard, Alex Groza and Dale Barnstable, were arrested for accepting a $500 bribe each to fix a game against Loyola of Chicago in the 1948 NIT at Madison Square Garden. These three athletes played on Kentucky's 1948 and 1949 NCAA championship teams.
Two other coaches greatly affected by the 1951 scandal were Clare Bee of Long Island University and Nat Holman of City College. Both of these highly respected coaches who are in the Basketball Hall of Fame dropped off the front sports pages as their programs downsized and never regained national stature.
Roy Williams should think of those coaches when he says gambling is "no big deal."
full of basketball players that week.
Betting Sports Forum: Allowing Athletes In Casinos Not Gamble NCAA Should Take
By GORDON WHITE
Celebrations continue, and rightfully so, from Cape Hatteras to the Great Smoky Mountains. A National Championship is worth an extended revelry.
The North Carolina players did themselves proud with a dominance of the 71st National Collegiate Athletic Association Basketball Championship tournament not seen since the days of John Wooden's superb UCLA teams in the 1960s and 1970s.
The accolades showered down upon Tyler Hansbrough, Ty Lawson, Wayne Ellington, Danny Green, Deon Thompson, Ed Davis et al are well deserved. When totally healthy, this was by far the best team in the nation and proved it last Monday night in a game that, for all intents and purposes, was over in the first five minutes.
But before jumping on the Roy Williams band wagon to heap additional praise and superlatives on the Tar Heels' coach, I want a better explanation from him about just why he thinks it is "no big deal" to allow his players, coaches and himself to spend free time gambling. Few, if any other coaches in college basketball, would allow their players to gamble in the Detroit casinos that are so handy to anyone in Motown where the Final Four was held last week.
Does Roy Williams suffer from a severe case of nescience when it comes to gambling and basketball game fixing or is he somehow infected with an ostrich syndrome?
Ty Lawson, the Tar Heels' junior guard who was named Atlantic Coast Conference player of the year, said he won $250 shooting craps in one of those Detroit casinos.
Williams, who said he also gambled in a Detroit casino last week and last December when the Tar Heels played Michigan State during the regular season, said, "I have zero problems with Ty doing it. I went and did it myself."
Williams added, "If we don't want these kids doing it, don't put the Final Four in a city where the casino is 500 yards from our front door."
According to that school of thought, Williams, who probably does not want his players drinking while preparing for a National Championship game, would not allow basketball tournaments in cities with bars. There are very few of those cities in the United States, if any.
Jim Calhoun, the Connecticut coach, and Tom Izzo, the Michigan State coach, specifically forbade their players to enter any Detroit or neighboring Windsor, Ontario, casino, during the Final Four last month.
NCAA President, Myles Brand, said, "I warn against that slippery slope. We prefer not to regulate that. But it is highly discouraged."
The NCAA has rules against betting on sports events but not against individuals gambling with such as dice, cards or slot machines.
Does Roy Williams not recall the greatest of them all, Michael Jordan, who obvioUSly had a gambling problem that became quite a serious embarrassment to the NBA when he played professionally? Jordan is reported to have been a heavy poker player in his college days at Chapel Hill. Oh, but that was no big deal.
I wonder if Williams ever heard of Pete Rose or Art Schlichter, a couple of Ohio natives, who ended up in jail as a result of their sports gambling problems.
Schlichter was the Ohio State quarterback who regularly attended a ColumbUS race track to bet on the horses while his head coach, Earle Bruce, was also at that track betting on the nags. Remind you of Williams and Lawson gambling in a Detroit casino?
Under the Roy Williams' theory, Ohio State should move away from Columbus because the horse track was nearby to tempt athletes.
Maybe Williams should be reminded, also, of Salvatore Sollazzo, Jackie Goldsmith, Irving and Benjamin Schwartzberg, Nick and Tony Englises, Joe Benitende and Jack West. They were each sentenced to prison terms (8 to 16 years for Sollazzo) for their part in bribing college basketball players to fix games between 1947 and 1951.
Coach Williams might like to remember Sherman White of Long Island University, the Michael Jordan of his day, who was sentenced to one year in jail for dumping games while playing for the Blackbirds in 1949 and 1950. Maybe Williams never heard of Ed Warner, Ed Roman and Irwin Dambrot of City College; Gene Melchiorre of Bradley; Bill Waller of the University of Toledo, and many more who were arrested and charged in the 1951 college basketball fixing scandals.
District Attorney Frank Hogan of Manhattan arrested 32 players from seven colleges who fixed a total of 86 games between 1947 and 1950, according to reports. Most of these players appeared before and were sentenced by Judge Saul Streit of New York Supreme Court. He gave Sherman White the one-year sentence. White would have become the first NBA player to make $100,000 a year if he had not committed the crime.
Roy Williams would be well served to remember how Kentucky's great coach, Adolph Rupp, reacted when the fixing scandal first broke in January, 1951. Rupp claimed that his mighty Wildcats that won the NCAA championship in 1948 and 1949 could never be corrupted by fixers.
"They couldn't reach my boys with a 10-foot pole," said Rupp.
But nine months later on Oct. 20, 1951, Kentucky's Ralph Beard, Alex Groza and Dale Barnstable, were arrested for accepting a $500 bribe each to fix a game against Loyola of Chicago in the 1948 NIT at Madison Square Garden. These three athletes played on Kentucky's 1948 and 1949 NCAA championship teams.
Two other coaches greatly affected by the 1951 scandal were Clare Bee of Long Island University and Nat Holman of City College. Both of these highly respected coaches who are in the Basketball Hall of Fame dropped off the front sports pages as their programs downsized and never regained national stature.
Roy Williams should think of those coaches when he says gambling is "no big deal."
full of basketball players that week.
Betting Sports Forum: Allowing Athletes In Casinos Not Gamble NCAA Should Take
Betting Sports is stimulus bill for lobbyists' lobby
Betting Sports is stimulus bill for lobbyists' lobby
By RON WILLIAMS
The News Journal
It's not often we see the Legislature and the governor's office in equal states of befuddledum over a single subject.
In what's turning into the worst fiscal crisis the state has faced -- and remember the Markell credo, "it may get worse" -- instead of dealing with personnel salary cuts, service disruptions and hospital closings, the entire General Assembly and Gov. Markell's administration is tied in knots with how to raise new bucks with increased gambling. But naturally, at least in Delaware, the obstructionists to accomplishing
this are -- rim shot, please -- are the existing casino owners.
Of course, there are also the various legislative types in Dover with relatives, friends and extended families who have employment connections to the racinos. You won't be hearing these people supporting gambling competition in the state would be healthy for everyone, including the taxpayers.
Then there are those like Speaker of the House Bob Gilligan, a close personal friend of Delaware Park owner Bill Rickman -- who also owns soon-to-be-competition-to-Delaware Ocean Downs in Maryland -- who, by all accounts, has put his public position ahead of his Rickman friendship. At least that's what he's told his Democratic caucus members. A couple years ago, Gilligan was in line for a top shelf executive job at Delaware Park. It never happened.
Then we have Rep. Bill Oberle, who concedes he has a family conflict in this matter because his wife sells trinkets to Delaware Park and his daughter works there.
It's difficult to keep track of the in-laws, cousins and neighbors of legislators who also owe their living to the slots machines. (Forget the ponies. They're going the way of newspapers any day now.)
The House lawmakers, including Majority Leader Pete Schwartzkopf, take great umbrage at the suggestion they are being strong-armed by the Monopoly Three. "I almost couldn't get that bill out of committee," Schwartzkopf said. "I had to agree not to work the bill that night to get it out." He also says he badly wants a new casino in Sussex, like the one planned by Del Pointe in Millsboro.
Schwartzkopf was behind authorizing a study of sports gambling venues outside the Monopoly Three and whether table games are a viable source of income. (Any takers on that study's outcome?) There is also the minor matter of whether they would be constitutional under the existing language. And we're still waiting for a Supreme Court ruling on the legality of what we already have.
The governor wanted the House to pass the bill before the two-week Easter recess so the Senate had a chance at it. That didn't happen. What mysteriously did happen is Schwartzkopf told the governor's office to work out a compromise while the House was on holiday leave. The problem with that, of course, is the governor's office doesn't vote on the bill, or any compromise. The bill is from the governor. Ifit were up to only him there'd be no compromise (although I think Markell has seen the light about adding three new casinos) and a sports betting bill with 10 free-standing parlors would be on his desk.
But let's not forget the real stars of this legislative ping-pong: the Monopoly Three and the Delaware Lobbyist Stimulus Package. As far as they are concerned they won the first round. And they did it without having to prove their wild, unsubstantiated threats, like having to go bankrupt or out of business if they're forced to pay 8 percent more of their take to the state.
The Monopoly Three used these absurd sob stories to especially influence the uninitiated rookie lawmakers, who apparently are deathly afraid of being blamed for putting Harrington Slots in Chapter 11. Don't worry, guys. You'll see pigs fly first.
But if they really can't make it work on their current revenue, I know a company or two that would be tickled to take the racinos off their hands.
Betting Sports is stimulus bill for lobbyists' lobby
By RON WILLIAMS
The News Journal
It's not often we see the Legislature and the governor's office in equal states of befuddledum over a single subject.
In what's turning into the worst fiscal crisis the state has faced -- and remember the Markell credo, "it may get worse" -- instead of dealing with personnel salary cuts, service disruptions and hospital closings, the entire General Assembly and Gov. Markell's administration is tied in knots with how to raise new bucks with increased gambling. But naturally, at least in Delaware, the obstructionists to accomplishing
this are -- rim shot, please -- are the existing casino owners.
Of course, there are also the various legislative types in Dover with relatives, friends and extended families who have employment connections to the racinos. You won't be hearing these people supporting gambling competition in the state would be healthy for everyone, including the taxpayers.
Then there are those like Speaker of the House Bob Gilligan, a close personal friend of Delaware Park owner Bill Rickman -- who also owns soon-to-be-competition-to-Delaware Ocean Downs in Maryland -- who, by all accounts, has put his public position ahead of his Rickman friendship. At least that's what he's told his Democratic caucus members. A couple years ago, Gilligan was in line for a top shelf executive job at Delaware Park. It never happened.
Then we have Rep. Bill Oberle, who concedes he has a family conflict in this matter because his wife sells trinkets to Delaware Park and his daughter works there.
It's difficult to keep track of the in-laws, cousins and neighbors of legislators who also owe their living to the slots machines. (Forget the ponies. They're going the way of newspapers any day now.)
The House lawmakers, including Majority Leader Pete Schwartzkopf, take great umbrage at the suggestion they are being strong-armed by the Monopoly Three. "I almost couldn't get that bill out of committee," Schwartzkopf said. "I had to agree not to work the bill that night to get it out." He also says he badly wants a new casino in Sussex, like the one planned by Del Pointe in Millsboro.
Schwartzkopf was behind authorizing a study of sports gambling venues outside the Monopoly Three and whether table games are a viable source of income. (Any takers on that study's outcome?) There is also the minor matter of whether they would be constitutional under the existing language. And we're still waiting for a Supreme Court ruling on the legality of what we already have.
The governor wanted the House to pass the bill before the two-week Easter recess so the Senate had a chance at it. That didn't happen. What mysteriously did happen is Schwartzkopf told the governor's office to work out a compromise while the House was on holiday leave. The problem with that, of course, is the governor's office doesn't vote on the bill, or any compromise. The bill is from the governor. Ifit were up to only him there'd be no compromise (although I think Markell has seen the light about adding three new casinos) and a sports betting bill with 10 free-standing parlors would be on his desk.
But let's not forget the real stars of this legislative ping-pong: the Monopoly Three and the Delaware Lobbyist Stimulus Package. As far as they are concerned they won the first round. And they did it without having to prove their wild, unsubstantiated threats, like having to go bankrupt or out of business if they're forced to pay 8 percent more of their take to the state.
The Monopoly Three used these absurd sob stories to especially influence the uninitiated rookie lawmakers, who apparently are deathly afraid of being blamed for putting Harrington Slots in Chapter 11. Don't worry, guys. You'll see pigs fly first.
But if they really can't make it work on their current revenue, I know a company or two that would be tickled to take the racinos off their hands.
Betting Sports is stimulus bill for lobbyists' lobby
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