LAS VEGAS The atmosphere in almost any Las Vegas sports book is the best sports viewing has to offer away from the stadium or arena. Passionate fans have a stake in the outcome of not just the game but perhaps the quarter or the half or the total points scored or the winner or loser.
It’s a feeling that has been limited to the great state of Nevada, where legalized sports betting has existed for 80 years. But that may change.
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie says his state will fight the federal law banning sports betting. If successful it could pave the way for sports books in other states and in places like the recently opened casino near Arundel Mills Mall and the proposed MGM Casino at National Harbor.
The federal government, though, may be the least of Gov. Christie’s problems.
Delaware’s efforts to go full force with sports betting failed three years ago when a court ruled to limit to the parlay betting that existed when the state first tried it in 1976.
Leading that fight against Delaware was the NFL, who along with the NBA, NHL, Major League Baseball and the NCAA have always banded together to fight any whiff of legalized sports betting. And Delaware had no major professional sports teams or major college sports programs, yet still faced a substantial roadblock from the NFL and friends.
New Jersey faces a greater challenge, with two NFL teams — the Giants and Jets — located there, as well as the NHL’s New Jersey Devils and arguably one major college football program in the Garden State in Rutgers. Add in the Super Bowl scheduled for MetLife Stadium in 2014, and you have some powerful leverage at stake in the fight for sports betting dollars.
But if and when legalized sports betting does find a place in New Jersey and other Eastern states, will the idea of the sports book location as a unique venue be outdated? Will internet betting and hand-held devices render the sports book into nothing more than a sports bar?
Michael Pollock, managing director of the Spectrum Gaming Group in New Jersey, believes places where casinos exist will fight efforts to diminish the presence of the sports book.
“If and when it happens, what we don’t know is how each state will respond,” he said. “The effort to get sports betting in Atlantic City is designed to emulate the Las Vegas model, to use it as a marketing tool to get people on site. Any state that has land-based casinos will want to coordinate sports betting with those casinos.”
So perhaps the only hope for recreating the Vegas sports book atmosphere back east are casino politics.
Save my seat in the sports book. Sounds like a good bet.
Examiner columnist Thom Loverro is the co-host of “The Sports Fix” from noon to 2 p.m. Monday through Friday on ESPN980 and espn980.com. Contact him at [email protected].
