Monthly Archives: September 2017

Texans again needed to cover the spread by sportsbooks in week 3

The Houston Texans (1-1) used a strong defensive performance and a huge touchdown run by rookie quarterback Deshaun Watson in his first NFL start to upset the Cincinnati Bengals last Thursday.

Odds courtesy of OddsShark.com

It will take a much bigger effort to pull off a similar feat this Sunday when the Texans visit the New England Patriots (1-1) as 13.5-point underdogs, looking to hand the defending Super Bowl champions their second straight home loss.

Houston has already lost the past six meetings with New England, so winning at Gillette Stadium seems almost impossible in this spot. However, the Texans could help sportsbooks simply by covering the spread as the biggest dogs on the Week 3 slate.

888Poker sponsor German High Stakes poker TV show and contribute to REG

Two short stories from the world’s second-largest online poker room as 888Poker sponsor a German High Stakes poker show and donates close to $50,000 to Raising for Effective Giving.

In the next 24-hours, someone is going to be handed a purple jacket and think, “What the fuck and I going to do with this?”

Poker Central’s Poker Masters has reached the End Boss part of the game, and four of the final six players hail from Germany. Poker has had a very Vorsprung Durch Technik feel about it for some years, and so I think it would be a fabulous idea to have a televised German High Roller cash game.

Wait?

ESIC Commissioner talks to MEPs about esports match-fixing concerns

Esports Integrity Coalition Commissioner, Ian Smith, talks to Members of the European Parliament about his concerns relating to match-fixing in esports.

When it comes to mainstream sponsorship, I’m not saying poker is like a mongrel dog that’s been starved and booted in the ribs, but as sure as asparagus will make your pee smell, the esports industry is in a different league.

Earlier this week, during the World Poker Tour (WPT) Borgata Poker Open, Adam Pliska and the team announced JetSmarter as their official private jet partner. At the Legends of Poker stop, they hooked up with COLOR Wines.

In parallel, the esports industry is sitting down for a glass of claret and a friendly game of Minecraft with the likes of Coca-Cola, Audi, Gillette, and Mercedes Benz.

Seahawks’ Sherman: NFL injury reports “for gamblers, for Vegas”

A Commonwealth of Kentucky legislator wants to prepare his state for sports betting’s eventual legality, while an NFL defensive back wants the league to pull its hypocritical head out of its ass.

Wednesday saw Kentucky state Sen. Julian Carroll file BR 155, which would exempt sports betting from the state’s list of gambling no-no’s, require the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission to institute a sports wagering system and to “vest forceful control” over the activity, and to make it Commonwealth policy to “encourage wagering on sporting events, when allowed by federal law.”

That last clause is the only really important one, as BR 155 won’t mean squat until the federal government revises or repeals its PASPA sports betting prohibition, which it could be forced to do if the US Supreme Court tells the government that New Jersey has a point.

Kentucky’s bill joins a growing list of states that are attempting to position themselves in the event that the Supremes find PASPA unconstitutional, or federal politicians decide they need to define their own gambling landscape before the courts do it for them.

Frustrated Fred Done says Betfred is done with UK racing

UK bookmakers Betfred are scrapping their racing sponsorships and closing their on-course betting windows based on founder Fred Done’s belief that the company’s “association with racing is broken.”

On Wednesday, the Racing Post broke the news that Betfred would end virtually all of its commercial relationships with racing following the July 2018 expiration of the company’s exclusive pool betting deal. Done said his company “will fulfill everything we promise” until its current obligations are met, but after that, basta.

The changes will see Betfred close 49 of its 51 on-course betting shops, and also affects nearly £6m in sponsorship income covering over 600 races. The only exceptions to these curbs will be at Ascot, with which Betfred inked a pool betting deal in April, and Chelmsford, which Betfred owns. Done said several courses were “really disappointed” by his plans to leave, “but I won’t stay where I’m not wanted.”

In 2011, Betfred paid £233m to win the exclusive right to offer Tote betting on UK racing, but by 2015, Done said dealings between racing and betting businesses were “worse than they’ve ever been.” The following year, UK racing stakeholders began publicly musing about launching their own Tote alternative when Betfred’s monopoly expired, a plan that 54 courses have since agreed to put into action next July.

Romania Lottery GM fired after 10 days on the job

Romania’s finance ministry recently turfed the national lottery’s general manager after only 10 days on the job.

Mihai Paduraru was hired as the new boss of the scandal-plagued state-run Romanian Lottery on August 10, only to be shown the door on August 20, two days after he agreed to what observers felt was an overpriced deal to buy 2k lottery terminals and a new IT network from a local company with no lottery experience.

Experienced lottery giant International Game Technology had earlier backed out of the bidding for the lottery contract due to its view that the framework agreement imposed “a level of risk on the provider by setting penalties without a threshold and short delivery times, which are not a market standard.”

Romanian media outlet Digi24 reported that Paduraru is something of a phantom, in that the Lottery released no photos or biographical data before or during his 10-day tenure, and the Lottery has reportedly declined to furnish this info following Paduraru’s exit.