Despite claims that it is going to become the next big thing in sports wagering, entity betting is off to a slow start in Nevada.
The reason? Lack of involvement among sports books.
In June 2015, Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval signed the state’s entity betting law, which allows out-of-state residents to wager—albeit passively—with Nevada sportsbooks. Under the law, Nevada-licensed sportsbooks are now able to accept wagers from business entities representing pools of passive investors—a process that can be compared to investing in mutual funds.
More than a year later, the concept only has one participant: sports betting tech provider CG Technology. The company was also a proponent of the legislation, lobbying the Nevada Legislature for the adoption of the legislation in hopes that entity betting will cause a dramatic boost to the state’s betting handle. Nevada is the only US jurisdiction currently allowed to offer single-game sports wagers.
So far, CG Technology has seven business entities registered to make bets, but since no other sports books are joining, these entities are only limited to one line on games as well as in how much of their funds they can bet, according to Las Vegas Review Journal’s Buck Wargo.
Supports of the concept are hoping that the new football season will pique the interest of other investors, enough to lure them in and form more entities. But gaming and sports law attorney Daniel Wallach observes that entity betting is “more hype than reality.”
“I don’t think the football season will be a dynamic event for that concept,” Wallach told the news outlet. “If these funds have acuity for gambling and choosing the right games and they have a high success rate, it would just be intuitive that the books wouldn’t want that business. They’re not in it to be on the losing side of a wager.”
