Sportsbook betting: Where Is The Legislative Push, Casino Support?
by Rudi Schiffer
As a columnist for Jackpot! Magazine and producer/host for the Goodtimes Radio Show on 730 a.m. Yahoo! Sports & Gambling, and a long time player and supporter of casino gaming, I wonder why no powers in the State of Mississippi have started the legislative process to bring legal sportsbook gambling to the region where it will be a big tax contributor and create more jobs, both of which are seriously needed in this wretched economy.
Northerners are viewed in the Grand Old South as pushy and maybe that's a good thing. New Jersey is such and has now brought legal sports wagering to the forefront in the Garden State and those seeds will bear fruit on the future as New Jersey will surely become only the fifth state with legal betting on your favorite team in a casino and not through your "shady guy" on the corner who smiles at you when you lose or beckons with a baseball bat if you fail to pay on time.
I listened with interest some time ago when oddsmaker Danny Sheridan spoke at a gathering of Memphis football fans and claimed that the Mid-South region had more illegal football gamblers than anywhere in the USA.
Those millions upon millions would get off the street and flow into casino sports books. By the way, a sportsbook is not in library, it's a big comfortable room with dozens of large TV screens, your own private seating area, a cage to take your bets and seat side F&B service, not to mention they are smoker friendly.
Voters in New Jersey have just approved a constitutional question overwhelmingly...65 percent voting for vs 35 percent voting opposed. It's at least the first step in a long process that will see a lot of hypocritical hand wringing and anguished cries of the evil exposure that legal sports betting will have on our pure "student" athletes. Greedy major league pro sports owners and their paid mouthpieces, the various commissioners, will join the chorus and loudly bemoan the downfall of their sport.
Hell, the so-called evil has been rampant for decades and outside of some point fixing and the epic Chicago Black Sox World Series fix in 1919, the billions spent on illegal gambling has had virtually no I'll effect on collegiate or professional sports.
If the NCAA, pro sports and their supporters would clean up their rotten houses and come out the closet of deceit, they would acknowledge the ubiquitous presence of sports betting and let more states wet their beaks in the overflowing fountain of tax money and jobs that would emanate.
All we need is the Department of Justice to recognize that the current law is unconstitutional and the fact that sports is here and always will be.
Don't hold your breath.
Northerners are viewed in the Grand Old South as pushy and maybe that's a good thing. New Jersey is such and has now brought legal sports wagering to the forefront in the Garden State and those seeds will bear fruit on the future as New Jersey will surely become only the fifth state with legal betting on your favorite team in a casino and not through your "shady guy" on the corner who smiles at you when you lose or beckons with a baseball bat if you fail to pay on time.
I listened with interest some time ago when oddsmaker Danny Sheridan spoke at a gathering of Memphis football fans and claimed that the Mid-South region had more illegal football gamblers than anywhere in the USA.
Those millions upon millions would get off the street and flow into casino sports books. By the way, a sportsbook is not in library, it's a big comfortable room with dozens of large TV screens, your own private seating area, a cage to take your bets and seat side F&B service, not to mention they are smoker friendly.
Voters in New Jersey have just approved a constitutional question overwhelmingly...65 percent voting for vs 35 percent voting opposed. It's at least the first step in a long process that will see a lot of hypocritical hand wringing and anguished cries of the evil exposure that legal sports betting will have on our pure "student" athletes. Greedy major league pro sports owners and their paid mouthpieces, the various commissioners, will join the chorus and loudly bemoan the downfall of their sport.
Hell, the so-called evil has been rampant for decades and outside of some point fixing and the epic Chicago Black Sox World Series fix in 1919, the billions spent on illegal gambling has had virtually no I'll effect on collegiate or professional sports.
If the NCAA, pro sports and their supporters would clean up their rotten houses and come out the closet of deceit, they would acknowledge the ubiquitous presence of sports betting and let more states wet their beaks in the overflowing fountain of tax money and jobs that would emanate.
All we need is the Department of Justice to recognize that the current law is unconstitutional and the fact that sports is here and always will be.
Don't hold your breath.
