Tag: sportsbooks

NFLPA warns agents that sportsbooks are snitching on players

With sports betting on the rise, the NFL Players Association warns that the sportsbooks are snitching to the NFL resulting in suspensions.

The NFL has been very consistent with how they punish those that gamble on games. It’s an indefinite suspension for anyone who bets on NFL games and the new precedent is six games for those who bet on non-NFL games in facilities.

NFL insider Aaron Wilson reported that the NFLPA issued an alert to all agents that sportsbooks have tracking software that has helped the NFL issue suspensions.

“During the NFL’s investigations we have learned that these apps (like FanDuel) are highly sensitive and very sophisticated at tracking, among other things, user location to be sure that the people using the app are not ‘prohibited gamblers’ and/or that the person using the app is in a location where they are allowed to place bets on the app. We have confirmed that some states monitor/audit FanDuel and the other gambling apps to ensure that the companies are in compliance with state law. Further the apps monitor gambler activity. It was as part of that monitoring that the NFL learned of the players using the apps at work in violation of NFL rules. At no time should players open or use any mobile gambling app while at work.”

It’s intriguing that the NFLPA sent this memo to the agents and not to the players directly since they are the ones that are impacted. The league has suspended six players over the last 18 months and there were reportedly multiple staffers that were let go as well.

This policy isn’t likely to change and is relatively easy to follow. Just don’t bet at work.

A running list of all the U.S. professional sports stadiums with sportsbooks

The Cleveland Cavaliers are the latest team to get a sportsbook in their arena.

As more states continue to legalize sports betting, professional teams across every league continue to find ways to capitalize on the opportunity for new revenue created by the industry.

One way they’re doing that is by opening sportsbooks on or near the grounds of their home stadiums, hoping to make customers of the fans who wager on sports and potentially convert a few who don’t.

In May 2021, the opening of the William Hill Sportsbook at Capital One Arena in Washington D.C. took another step in that direction as the first sportsbook to operate inside of an arena in the U.S. But while it was the first, it’s not the last. And there will be more to come.

Here’s a look at stadiums in the United States with a sportsbook or sportsbook lounge in or near them.

This list will be updated.

Audi Field (D.C. United)

FanDuel and D.C. United opened a sportsbook at Audi Field on July 8, 2022.

Citi Field (New York Mets)

The Mets and Caesars Entertainment announced a plan to open the Caesars Sportsbook at Metro Grille during the 2022 season.

Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse (Cleveland Cavaliers)

The Caesars Sportsbook at Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse opened in January 2023, just after sports betting became legal in Ohio.

United Center (Chicago Bulls & Blackhawks)

The announced FanDuel Sportsbook lounge at the United Center officially opened in October 2022.

State Farm Stadium (Arizona Cardinals)

The BetMGM Sportsbook at State Farm Stadium opened in September 2022 and became the first stadium with a sportsbook to host a Super Bowl later that season.

Nationals Park (Washington Nationals)

The BetMGM Sportsbook at Nationals Park opened in January 2022, becoming the first retail sportsbook connected to a Major League Baseball stadium.

BetFTW previously took a trip there to get a sense of the day-to-day operation.

Footprint Center (Phoenix Suns & Mercury)

In September 2021, the FanDuel Sportsbook lounge inside Footprint Center opened.

Chase Field (Arizona Diamondbacks)

A Caesars Sportsbook opened at the former Game 7 Grill space outside Chase Field in June 2022.

Wrigley Field (Chicago Cubs)

DraftKings announced a Sportsbook at Wrigley Field coming in 2023.

Caesars Sportsbook at Capital One Arena (Washington Wizards & Capitals)

William Hill, now a part of Caesars Entertainment, opened its sportsbook at Capital One Arena in May 2021, becoming the first sportsbook in a U.S. professional sports facility. 

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With no resume date for Bills-Bengals, sportsbooks are voiding wagers and refunding bettors

Several sportsbooks announced they are refunding unsettled Bills-Bengals bets.

In light of news that Monday night’s game between the Buffalo Bills and Cincinnati Bengals won’t be resumed this week, several sportsbooks are voiding out unsettled wagers and returning money to bettors.

The game was postponed in the first quarter after Bills safety Damar Hamlin collapsed from cardiac arrest and needed to have his heartbeat restored on the field. The latest update from the team on Tuesday was that Hamlin remains in critical condition at University of Cincinnati Medical Center.

With no word on if or when the game will be finished, Bally Bet, BetMGM, Caesars, FanDuel and Hard Rock were among the sportsbooks to announce the cancelation of bets.

BetMGM and FanDuel said multi-leg parlays that include voided bets will remain active with only the voided leg removed and the price adjusted.

In addition to unsettled markets, Hard Rock announced it’s also voiding out losing markets from Bills-Bengals.

More

Thoughts and prayers remain with Hamlin and his loved ones.

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Maryland’s first-week mobile betting stats show how sportsbooks successfully use free bets to lure customers

A minor setback for a major comeback.

Marylanders are beating the books…for now.

In the eight days of November from the time mobile sports betting went live in Maryland until the end of the month, the mobile sports gambling industry had a net loss of about $38 million, according to a Baltimore Banner report.

But that may have been part of the plan.

Maryland bettors wagered $186 million through online apps over the first eight days of mobile sports betting. But a whopping $64 million of that money was promotional free plays. So, more than a third of the money Marylanders used to place bets came directly from the sportsbooks themselves.

Promotional free plays are a tactic sportsbooks use to lure new customers in a competitive industry. But once a market matures, they aren’t offered at nearly the same rate as when the sportsbooks first open in a new region. The hope is that customers get hooked using those free bets and come back with their own money in the future.

For sportsbooks, it’s a minor setback with the hope of a major comeback. Six of the seven operational sportsbook apps in Maryland reported losses in the first month. When the free plays dry up, that’s when books expect to see the fruits of their initial offerings.

In Maryland, online sportsbooks are allowed to offer unlimited promotional free plays in the first 12 months of operation, according to the Banner. After that, they can only spend 20% of their profits on free plays.

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Sportsbooks limit your ability to make a living off betting, but they’re happy to let you go broke

American bookmakers are aggressively limiting winning customers.

If you can go into your sportsbook app and place a bet for any amount you want (up to whatever the general limit is for that event), chances are you aren’t winning enough.

If you were, your sportsbook would have likely placed a limit on how much you could bet — and thus, how much you could win — at a figure much lower than the general public.

Known as the European model, “sacking” winning customers is a practice that American bookmakers are increasingly adopting, Danny Funt of The Washington Post reported Thursday.

DraftKings has been very open about this strategy with CEO Jason Robins getting into a bit of a PR mess last December after declaring “People who are doing this for profit are not the players we want”.

But it’s completely anti-American, predatory and driving successful bettors back into the illegal and dangerous markets we were supposed to be getting away from.

A popular promotional tactic online sportsbooks use to drive awareness and encourage betting is to share photos of winning tickets on social media. Usually, it’s the big winners. If you follow DraftKings, FanDuel or any number of other sportsbooks on Twitter or Instagram, chances are you’ve seen a few.

Something with a caption like: “Bet $1 to win $20,000!”

What they don’t tell you is how many of these bets actually lose. That those thousands of losers offset the few big winners. They want you to believe there’s a chance to get rich. And if you get hooked and go broke in the process, that’s on you.

But if you happen to get good enough to actually get rich? Well, they can’t really have that happening. And that’s when bettors start seeing limits on how much they can bet.

“Sharps,” or bettors who understand the market and have an edge, are being limited faster and more aggressively than in the past, according to the Post. A DraftKings bettor won $50,000 on a $1,000 bet that Evan Fournier would lead the Knicks in scoring against the Celtics. A day later, he couldn’t bet more than $100. A few days after that, he couldn’t bet more than $3.63.

According to Funt, even those inside the industry are voicing concern:

Some experts on the other side of the counter agree. “Too many accounts get limited, and those that get limited are limited too harshly,” said Chris Fargis, senior director of trading risk at the sportsbook that Fanatics, the merchandise giant, plans to launch next year. Fargis, who previously ran the DraftKings sportsbook, says large digital operators are forced to make some limiting decisions using automation. Modern software often lacks the “granularity,” Fargis said, to limit a certain customer on one type of bet but not another. Even good technology doesn’t negate the need for skilled employees, he added. “Some operators just don’t choose to staff heavily against that problem.

The Post reports these type of individual limits are allowed nationwide. Sportsbooks hide behind their “entertainment company” description for the reason they’re entitled to make money but customers aren’t. And though it’s understandable from a business perspective why they’d use every tool at their disposal to ensure that’s the case — especially as they start looking to turn a profit — it’s completely unethical and states need to step in to create laws that prevent these type of individual limits.

If sportsbooks are confident enough to offer a line for betting, everyone should be able to bet on that line the same. If you aren’t limiting people’s ability to go broke, then you shouldn’t limit their ability to make money either — padding your pockets with the cash of bad bettors while being unwilling to pay the good ones.

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Sportsbooks suffered their first losing Sunday of the 2022 NFL season in Week 4

Bettors fought back in Week 4.

For once, NFL bettors had their day against sportsbooks in Week 4. Sunday was the first losing Sunday of the 2022 NFL season for several sportsbooks.

SuperBook at Westgate, Caesars and WynnBet all reported losses, according to ESPN’s David Purdum, and that’s even with many books beating the public on the New England Patriots cover against the Green Bay Packers.

At Tipico Sportsbook, 81% of bets on the Patriots-Packers spread were on Green Bay and 86% of the money. That single win apparently wasn’t enough to offset the collective losses though.

“It’s definitely a change from the first three weeks, when the results were pretty solid,” Adam Pullen, assistant director of trading for Caesars Sportsbook told ESPN.

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Among the matchups the public nailed are Dallas’ win and cover over Washington, Arizona’s win and cover over Carolina and Las Vegas’ win and cover over Denver. Purdum also credited several player props for contributing to a poor showing for the books.

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NHL’s new digitally enhanced dasherboards are the perfect marketing tool for sportsboooks

Digitally enhanced dasherboards will allow for more targeted advertising during games.

The NHL is debuting some new technology this season that’s sure to make sportsbook operators happy. The tech is called digitally enhanced dasherboards, or DED, and it will allow for television broadcasts to digitally replace the advertisements located on rink boards in arenas with ads targeted for the specific markets the games are airing.

So in other words, if you’re at Capital One Arena catching the Washington Capitals play the Philadelphia Phillies, you might see a Capital One advertisement on the rink board. But if you’re watching the game on the local broadcast in Philadelphia, you might see a Wells Fargo ad in the same spot. The local broadcast in D.C. might have sold that spot to a car dealership. And if you’re watching the national broadcast on TNT, you might see a McDonald’s ad.

So how does this benefit sportsbook operators? Because they can now target markets where betting is legal and they’re licensed to operate. That includes international games, as the NHL will have games aired in more than 100 countries. The league plans to create DED feeds for every country where there’s a big enough demand. That means European sportsbooks will have a chance to get their ads on the boards too.

Sponsors are able to buy five zones of digital space, sold to them in 30-second increments. Those ads will show when the main center-ice camera is broadcasted. Eventually, the DED system will allow for broadcasts to display stats and special goal celebration effects.

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Sportsbooks and oddsmakers are unsurprisingly thrilled about College Football Playoff expansion

No one wins more with College Football Playoff expansion than sportsbooks.

If there’s one group of people who won’t see any issue with the College Football Playoff expanding to 12 teams in 2026 (or potentially earlier), it’s those who run sportsbooks.

Extending the schedule of one of the most popular sports in the United States? And putting more games in primetime for a national audience? Yeah, that’ll have oddsmakers cheering.

That all completely makes sense—though it remains to be seen if star players on lower-seeded teams sit out playoff games to preserve their draft stock rather than risk injury in four additional contests.

And while pricing out odds for outright winners may be a little more difficult in the short term, there’s plenty for bettors to like about Friday’s announcement. Namely, more options to chose from — which means more potential edges to find.

Potential futures hitting the market will likely include:

  • How many teams from ‘X’ conference make the playoff
  • Conference with the College Football Playoff winner
  • Schools to host a playoff game

It also helps sportsbooks that many of college football’s powerhouses are located in states where legal sports wagering already exists. That includes Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Louisiana, Indiana and Oregon. California may very well be the next state to legalize betting this November.

Gone will be the days bettors could feel confident in a solid return for blindly putting down futures bets on Alabama and Ohio State. Instead the value may shift to smaller schools who have an easier path to the postseason (meaning we might not see a run like Cincinnati in 2021 again anytime soon).

More offerings are coming, and while more options tend to benefit consumers, there’s no question the payoff for sportsbooks will outweigh all of it.

Gannett may earn revenue from Tipico for audience referrals to betting services. Tipico has no influence over nor are any such revenues in any way dependent on or linked to the newsrooms or news coverage. See Tipico.com for Terms and Conditions. 21+ only. Gambling problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER (NJ), 1-800-522-4700 (CO).

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Joey Chestnut bettors are getting refunds after his altercation with protester in hot dog eating contest

Chestnut finished well under the 74.5 line.

First of all, if you bet on competitive eating, seek help.

With that out of the way, if you did put a little action on this year’s Nathan’s Famous Hot Dog Eating Contest and you took Joey Chestnut’s over at 74.5, a different type of help is on the way.

Some sportsbooks are issuing refunds to over bettors due to the protester who rushed the stage and was subsequently roughed up by Chestnut. The assumption here is that the interaction, albeit brief, potentially impacted the results.

FanDuel and DraftKings are two of the sportsbooks to have announced refunds on Tuesday.

This is an extremely generous thing for sportsbooks to do, because let me tell you, Chestnut was not coming close to 75 dogs. Playing through injury, he finished with 63. And even if I’m accounting for the disruption in his rhythm and whatever else it takes to eat a ridiculous amount of hot dogs at a ridiculous pace, I don’t think he makes up a margin of 12.

That being said, it wasn’t a bad bet coming in. The man literally owns the top 10 records for hot dogs eaten in the contest, including the all-time record he just set last year at 76. If I was betting on the contest, I wouldn’t have bet against him either.

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Debunking the fan theory Dolphins owner Stephen Ross could profit from his team tanking

Stephen Ross allegedly offered Brian Flores $100,000 per loss in 2019. He’d have a hard time betting on the Dolphins either way.

A class-action lawsuit filed by former Miami Dolphins coach Brian Flores against the Dolphins, Denver Broncos, New York Giants and the NFL rocked the league on Tuesday night.

Not so much because it revealed anything new about how the most powerful sports organization in the United States really works, but because of the documented evidence and examples that helped confirm long-held suspicions.

The accusations of racist practices at the league’s highest levels are, to put it mildly, absolutely abhorrent. The league will also have to answer for one allegation in particular that has set the sports betting world on fire.

According to Flores, Miami Dolphins owner Stephen Ross offered the head coach an additional $100,000 for every loss in 2019 to ensure the team tanked. Flores said he would never agree to such a deal—and the fact that he went 24-25 with back-to-back winning seasons in 2020 and 2021 help prove his point.

Yet some bettors began connecting dots that didn’t exist. Theories that Ross could make money wagering on his team to lose began spreading on social media. It’s a natural thought process given the NFL’s recent embrace of sports betting. It’s just not very practical.

The reality of such a scheme is way more complicated than Ross placing bets himself or employing proxies to do the dirty work. To be extremely clear: There is no evidence Ross attempted to game the system in this manner.

BetFTW reached out to Tipico Sportsbook to learn more about the safeguards in place to prevent a scandal of this magnitude and found the juice wouldn’t be worth the squeeze for a variety of reasons.

Let’s break it down.