The race to win the NFL Super Bowl in the 2020/21 season is going to be a close one, but while many sportsbettors are investing in their favourite teams to succeed, one of the best and less busy markets is the Coach of the Year.

Who’ll take the Super Bowl? You could be better off to think about who might be the best coach, as we’ve discovered in looking at the latest odds. Here are three bosses who are attracting some bettors and why they might – or might not – be good value.

Kevin Stefanski / Cleveland Browns – 25/1

On some sites, Stefanski has plummeted in the odds from 25/1 to around 16/1 (or from +2500 to +1600 if you prefer). What the reason for this is, we’re not quite sure. Stefanski is a bold new pick as head coach, but the Cleveland Brown were way back last season, finishing 3rd in the AFC North, and are 6/5 to repeat this, a much less expected 11/2 to win the division.

Pennsylvania gaming operators posted revenue in July that narrowly surpassed the same month last year, thanks entirely to their new online casino and sports betting operations.

Figures released Monday by the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board (PGCB) show the state’s gaming operators generated combined revenue of just over $283m in July, a 0.56% rise over the same month last year and more than twice the sum generated in June 2020. July marked the first month since the pandemic shutdown in March that all 12 casinos were open for at least part of the reporting period. 

The state’s traditional big earners – land-based slots and tables – were broadly negative in July, generating revenue of $165m (-17.3%) and $52.5m (-31.8%), respectively. Online slots and tables – which had only just begun to operate last summer, soared to $39.4m and $11.9m, respectively, from a combined $812k in July 2019.

Combined with the $3m kicked in by the state’s lone online poker site (PokerStars), total online casino revenue hit $54.35m, easily topping June 2020’s $50m for a new market record.

China’s anti-online gambling campaign is seeking public help in building awareness of gambling’s alleged evils, while continuing to inflict pain on gambling operators.

On August 13, a number of Chinese government agencies, including the feared Ministry of Public Security, announced the formal launch of a “publicity and education campaign for combating cross-border gambling.”

The campaign is being rolled out across all major Chinese social media channels, including Weibo, WeChat, Douyin and Kuaishou, and involves both “theme posters and short video solicitation activities.”

The government has invited members of the public to upload their own anti-gambling artwork and videos for consideration to become part of this “important propaganda position for cracking down on cross-border gambling.” Those whose submissions are good enough to be included in the campaign can win free laptops, tablets and other gear, as well as a likely boost in their personal score on China’s ‘social credit’ system. Deadlines for submissions are September 13.

Macau casino operator Galaxy Entertainment Group (GEG) has trimmed its operating costs to the bone, based on its view that the global gambling hub’s prolonged downturn may be far from over.

Figures published last week show GEG generated revenue of HK$1.15b (US$148.7m) in the three months ending June 30, down 91% from the same period last year and 77% worse than the sum generated in Q1 2020. GEG reported an earnings loss of HK$1.37b versus a HK$4.3b gain in Q2 2019.

Net gaming revenue accounted for HK$276m (-97.5% year-on-year) of Q2’s overall tally, more than twice as much as non-gaming revenue (HK$130m, -90%), but the company’s construction materials division easily trumped both of its rivals with HK$747m (+4.3%). Gaming accounted for nearly 85% of Q2 2019’s revenue total, leaving the company very glad that to have its construction unit’s cash flow during the current crisis.

VIP gambling turnover was down 96.2% to just HK$6.7b in Q2, while VIP gross revenue slid 95.7% to HK$315m. The VIP revenue stat would have been even worse had VIP win rate not risen 0.6 points to an outsized 4.7%, continuing the company’s recent trend of playing extremely lucky against its high-rollers.

UK online gamblers welcomed the return of major sports in June, resulting in sports betting revenue more than doubling from the previous month.

Figures released Monday by the UK Gambling Commission (UKGC) show gross gambling yield (GGY) from real event sports betting hit nearly £217.5m in June, up 115% from the £101.3m reported in May. The figures represent data collected from the UK’s “biggest” operators, who represent around 80% of the UK’s total online gambling market.

The rise in so-called ‘real’ sports wagers took a bite out of all other gaming verticals, with online slots GGY falling 9.6% from May to £166.5m in June, while other casino products slipped 12% to £68.5m. Virtual sports betting was off 15.2% to £9.6m and eSports slid nearly one-quarter to less than £3.5m.

Online poker suffered the biggest month-to-month revenue decline, tumbling 36.3% to just under £11.7m, as active online poker players fell by more than one-quarter from May to June.

A huge week of Champions League football saw former champions of Europe Barcelona completely fall apart and Manchester City once again fail to make it past the quarters. The action was frenetic, the drama unmissable. There’s no club tournament like the UEFA Champions League.

Atalanta 1-2 Paris St. Germain

Italian side Atalanta came into this game as underdogs but left Portugal two hours later after having been desperately unlucky to lose. The Italian side, famed for their cavalier style under Gian Piero Gasperini, were on the attack from the off and the only surprise about former Chelsea midfielder Mario Pasalic opening the scoring was how long it took to happen. The Serie A side were fluid and dangerous while PSG were reliant on one man – Neymar. Atalanta’s tactics this season have enthralled football fans around the world:

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KPmUmeEI3Qo?feature=oembed]

The Star Casino in Sydney, Australia has been fined just over $64 thousand USD after three instances of minors gambling on the casino floor were discovered. The latest breach includes a 12-year old girl who was smuggled onto the gaming floor by her parents on a holiday to Australia.

New South Wales Liquor & Gaming Chair Phillip Crawford released a statement highlighting the seriousness of the breaches. “It’s quite staggering that the young girl’s parents facilitated her entry in such a deceptive manner, let alone allowed their daughter to gamble,” Mr Crawford said.

In video footage released by New South Wales Liquor & Gaming, the girl’s mother can be seen sneaking her daughter in through an exit door, before taking her to the gaming floor and watching as the child placed 21 bets on poker machines.

The girl and her parents were reportedly visiting from China on tourist visas and were approached by Star City Casino Security staff once they attempted to leave the venue.

The culture of an organization has a large effect on how it actually gets work done. Building that culture so that it is conducive to communication and trust is important, and something Emily Haruko Leeb, Corporate Coach and Consultant is ready to help with. The one-time super producer of CalvinAyre.com joined Becky Liggero Fontana for this week’s episode of The Long Con.

Liggero Fontana and Haruko Leeb go way back, having met at the very beginning of this site’s founding.” 11 years ago, I had started a gig with a new online gaming media venture by the name of CalvinAyre.com,” Haruko Leeb recounted. “For the following four years, you and I worked together producing content for CalvinAyre.com, I was a production manager, and we were gallivanting around Europe, as you still are, well not during Covid, but discovering different gaming conferences, events, parties. Four years into my doing that role, I got pregnant with my first child, and that role wasn’t really fitting to being a new mom so I resigned from CalvinAyre.com and I got into the mommy world for a little while.”

That transition into a new life eventually brought her to what she’s doing now. “When I was pregnant with my daughter, I decided to do a coach training program,” she said. “Along the way, I became an associate with a company called ParaComm International, and ParaComm does corporate coaching, executive coaching, corporate consulting on a very large scale.”

Haruko Leeb explained what kind of coaching she’s now providing. “So in my private practice, I have started to do more organizational transformation work lately, so this is working with teams and organizations, c-suites, leadership groups, owner operators and CEOs sometimes one-on-one,” she said. “We’re doing a lot of work around organizational transformation, so a lot of culture, and there’s often a lot of involvement from HR, or as we like to say, people and culture because humans are not actually resources.”

Things aren’t as bad as they may seem for DraftKings. In an update to the public, Morgan Stanley Research has determined that a recent IRS memo shouldn’t hurt the company’s bottom line too much, and a lack of sports was no hurdle to the company’s growth.

The IRS memo, not aimed at DraftKings but implying an effect on both them and FanDuel, states that entry fees in a daily fantasy sports contest are wagers, and should be subject to a 0.25% excise tax on sports betting, rising to 2% where the activity isn’t specifically legal. The two operators have maintained that their daily fantasy sports offerings are not gambling contests.

Morgan Stanley says the battle is far from over. “This is just a memo and we expect DKNG (DraftKings) and FLTR (Flutter Entertainment, owner of FanDuel) to fight the finding given numerous states have defined DFS as a game of skill not luck, and thus would not fall under the excise tax rule.”

They go on to state that even should DraftKings lose in a legal battle, it would only mean additional taxes between $20 million and $30 million per year, on top of whatever retroactive taxes they would have to pay.