Monthly Archives: September 2018

FanDuel blinks, will pay Jersey bettor despite pricing error

A New Jersey sports bettor is more than $82k richer after the FanDuel Group agreed to pay his winnings despite an obvious software glitch.

On Thursday, the Associated Press broke the news that FanDuel had agreed to pay out $82,610 in disputed winnings to a bettor who’d wagered on last Sunday’s NFL tilt between the Oakland Raiders and the Denver Broncos.

In case you’ve been trapped under something heavy these past few days, a bettor claimed to have been stiffed by staff at the Meadowlands Racetrack’s FanDuel Sportsbook, who refused to honor his late-game wager based on the company’s insistence that the odds were incorrectly offered.

Late in the game, FanDuel offered in-play odds of +340 on the Broncos coming back to defeat the Raiders. Shortly before the Broncos came on the field to attempt a last-minute 36-yard field goal, FanDuel’s odds on the Broncos winning inexplicably shifted to +75,000. During the 18-second period these odds were available, the book accepted a “small number of bets.”

NFL week 3 betting lines and trends roundup

A common theme that NFL fans will hear entering Week 3 is the playoff probabilities of 2-0 or 0-2 teams. Seven teams entered this week at 2-0, and since the NFL adopted its current playoff format in 1990 more than 62 percent of teams to start a year with that mark did make the postseason.

Odds courtesy of OddsShark.com

Almost impossibly, there’s not a single matchup of 2-0 teams in Week 3. There is one meeting of 0-2 clubs as the New York Giants visit the Houston Texans, two teams struggling offensively. Eli Manning, at age 37, sure looks like he’s shot for the G-Men. On the flipside, Houston’s Deshaun Watson may just be a bit rusty coming back from last year’s ACL tear. The Texans are 6-point favorites but have lost eight straight overall and failed to cover their previous seven.

Perhaps the marquee matchup of Week 3 is a battle of Los Angeles, and possibly a Super Bowl preview, as the Chargers head across town to take on the Rams – those teams will share the same stadium in a few years. The Rams have been perhaps the league’s most impressive team thus far and are -7. They are 7-2 ATS in their past nine as a favorite.

BetCity first bookmaker to make Russia’s top-500 companies list

Russian bookmaker BetCity has become the first betting operator to make the annual list of Russia’s top 500 companies.

On Thursday, Moscow-based media outlet RBC issued its annual list of the country’s 500 largest companies, and Russian bookmaker BetCity just managed to sneak onto the list’s lower rungs, marking the first time a local sports betting operator has achieved such status.

BetCity ranked 495th on RBC’s latest list, with an estimated profit of RUB48m (US$724k) in 2017, an eight-fold increase over the company’s net take in 2015. While BetCity’s profit appears pitifully small compared to many western operators, the company is getting better at squeezing profits from betting turnover, as total betting volume increased only RUB1b to RUB18b ($271.5m) over that same span.

BetCity launched its Russian-language site in 2003 and later opened a chain of retail betting shops that has since grown to 160 points of sale. BetCity’s Russian-licensed website ranked sixth on a SimilarWeb survey of website traffic for Russian bookmakers in the month of April.

Taiwan illegal betting ring staff used ketamine to handle stress

Taiwan authorities have shut down an illegal online gambling operation that reportedly handled wagers worth over NT$1b (US$32.5m) in just the past six months.

On Thursday, the Taipei Times reported that Taiwan’s Criminal Investigation Bureau (CIB) had shut down the illegal online gambling operation of a “criminal ring” following a series of raids earlier this month on residences in the municipality of Taoyuan.

Police arrested a number of the ring’s members, including the two suspected leaders, one of whom claimed that he was just the disgruntled ‘branch manager’ for the ring’s Chinese proprietors, didn’t handle any of the betting cash and received only a small commission for his services.

Despite the ring reportedly handling weekly wagers averaging NT$20m, the self-described branch manager said his total cut over the ring’s lifespan was a mere NT$10m, from which he had to pay his overworked staff.

Congress sets Sept. 27 hearing on sports betting regulation

US federal legislators will hold a hearing on sports betting next week, despite pushback from gaming operators that federal oversight of wagering is both unnecessary and unwanted.

On Thursday, ESPN scribe David Purdum reported that the House of Representatives Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, Homeland Security and Investigation had scheduled a hearing titled An Examination of Sports Betting in America for Thursday, September 27 at 10am.

The prospect of the feds having a go at regulating sports betting took an ominous turn last month, when Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) made a speech on the Senate floor arguing for Congress to impose “a set of fundamental, federal standards” for sports betting. Hatch’s call was echoed the following week by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY).

The American Gaming Association (AGA), the nation’s foremost gaming industry group, pushed back immediately on Hatch’s and Schumer’s proposals, noting that the last federal effort to control sports betting was “an abject failure” that was struck down by the US Supreme Court this spring, leading to a rush of individual states approving their own betting regulatory setups.

Meridian Gaming wins Colombia’s 15th online gambling license

Colombia has issued its 15th online gambling license to a local subsidiary of Meridian Gaming.

On Wednesday, Colombia’s Coljuegos gaming regulatory body announced that it had awarded its latest online gambling license to Meridian Gaming Colombia SAS, which plans to offer sports betting via its Meridianbet.com.co domain (which currently features only a password log-in).

The Malta-based Meridian operates both B2C and B2B operations in Europe and began expanding into South America, Africa and Asia a few years ago. In addition to online operations, Meridian also runs over 600 retail betting points of sale across the globe via its Bet Shop Manager product.

This is the third license that Colombia has issued this month, following the diplomas awarded to Alfabet and Teclino, and Coljuegos president Juan Perez Hidalgo restated his prediction that the market will have 17 approved online licensees before the year is through.

MGM adds Ohio’s Rocksino gaming ops to casino portfolio

Casino operator MGM Resorts has struck a deal to acquire an Ohio casino from MGM’s real estate investment trust (REIT) MGM Growth Properties (MGP).

On Wednesday, MGM announced that it had agreed to pay MGP $275m for the operating assets of the Hard Rock Rocksino Northfield Park casino, which MGP acquired in April from Milstein Entertainment for $1.06b.

At that time, MGP, which functions purely as a landlord and doesn’t oversee any gaming operations, strongly hinted that it would eventually sell the Rocksino’s gaming operations to an unspecified third party (hint hint) while retaining ownership of the 110-acre land plot.

MGP was created in 2015 as a way for MGM to realize some short-term billions, and now serves as MGM’s primary landlord. MGM said the Rocksino deal will increase its annual payments to MGP by $60m, 90% of which will be fixed and subject to 2% annual increases until 2022.