Las Vegas ‘locals’ casino operator Station Casinos has become the latest Nevada gaming outfit to offer sports wagering via mobile device. Station has run a closed-loop online intranet system via Las Vegas’ Cox Communications called Sports Connection for some time now, but the same options are now available via Android smart phones. (Blackberry devices will be supported “in a future phase.”). Like the mobile products offered by competitors American Wagering (now owned by William Hill) and Cantor Gaming, your phone’s location services need to be enabled so the system can confirm you’re within Nevada borders when you place your wagers. And like its competitors, bettors will first have to open up an account in person at a Station Casinos sports book, where deposits and withdrawals must also be made.
Don Best Sports, the leading supplier of odds services for North American sports, has inked a deal with sports/betting data supplier Betradar. The pact will see Don Best’s info distributed to the over 400 businesses in 60 countries to which Betradar streams data, or at least, those businesses whose customers have a vested interest in American pro football, basketball, baseball, hockey as well as their collegiate equivalents. Carsten Koerl, CEO of Betradar’s Swiss parent outfit Sportradar, said the deal would allow European bookies “the opportunity to tap into revenue streams that are outside their local time zones.”
LESNIAK SAYS NFL JUST WANTS “A PIECE OF THE ACTION”
The fact that Europeans and Nevadans can partake in sports bets around the clock from the comfort of their own home really sticks in the craw of New Jersey state Senator Ray Lesniak. Lesniak has not been shy about expressing his contempt for the major North American sports leagues’ decision to file suit last week to block New Jersey from proceeding with its plans to bring single-game sports betting to Atlantic City casinos and state racetracks. Earlier this week, Lesniak appeared on NJ Today, where he said the claims made in the leagues’ filing “don’t pass the smell test.”
Host Mike Schneider reminded Lesniak that when the federal PASPA sports betting prohibition was introduced in 1992, New Jersey was given a year-long grace period in which to enact sports betting laws similar to Nevada, but failed to do so, leaving Schneider wondering what kind of justification New Jersey could now offer for reopening the debate. Lesniak said the very fact that the option was extended in 1992 is proof of PASPA’s unconstitutionality. “If the ban is to protect the integrity of the sport, as the sports leagues hypocritically say it is, then they would have banned it altogether,” not elevate one or more states above the rest.
Asked by Schneider what sort of feedback he’d received from the owners of New Jersey’s pro sports franchises regarding the state’s fight with the leagues, Lesniak sidestepped the question, instead recalling how the leagues were originally opposed to fantasy leagues, but have now cut themselves in for a piece of the fantasy pie. Lesniak went on to single out the NFL as being the chief thorn in New Jersey’s side, and suggested the reason the NFL was being so obstructionist was because “they just want a piece of the action,” but “I’m sorry, guys, you can’t have it all.”
