Leagues Sue Claiming Delaware Single-Game Sports Betting is Skill
The National Football League, Major League Baseball, the National Basketball Association, the National Hockey League, and the National Collegiate Athletic Association joined in suing the state of Delaware today, claiming that the new sports betting law violates the state constitution. Particularly, these fine groups, of which only the NCAA has even the most minor involvement in the state, say the single-game betting format proposed in the new law is a wager of skill, and violates the requirement lottery games be based on skill.Las Vegas oddsmakers say, with the refinements that go into today's betting lines, betting against a spread, as proposed in Delaware, is the equivalent of flipping a coin. Sports betting expert Terry Pyzdoly says it is virtually impossible to play against a spread on a regular basis and beat the ten percent vigorish, because the skill is removed when the line is placed.
ESPN columnist Bill Simmons, an acknowledged football junkie, published each week his picks against the line, and let his wife, noted as not a sports fan, pick her choices. The educated and skilled expert picked for two seasons to finish just a hair below fifty percent; his untrained and uncaring wife finished at a hair over fifty percent.
ESPN quotes a sports gambling legal expert considering whether the NFL has a case against Delaware. Jeffrey Standen of Willamette University says the other feature of the claim, that only parlays were previously allowed in the federal exemption for Delaware, is unlikely to stand up.
"If Delaware allowed bets on sports outcomes back in the day, is it really all that different if the outcome is on one game as opposed to three?" states Standen. "But the state claim may be a stronger case. With a single game there is more skill involved than trying to pick multiple games."
Gaming insiders know if that theory is tested, the results will show no skill involved in picking games against a line.
