At Long Last

Maine's first retail sportsbook opened last week, nearly two and half years after the state legalized sports betting and nearly a year after mobile betting went live.

Sep 18, 2024

NEWS: Maine’s first retail sportsbook is open for business. Why did it take so long?
NEWS: MLB Players’ Union files lawsuit against four sports betting/DFS companies claiming NIL violations.
NEWS: Michigan man arrested after exploiting a system vulnerability to make $2 million in fake deposits to Caesars Sportsbook.
QUICK HITTER: Cease-and-desist. Bovada exits three more states: Pennsylvania, Kansas, and Louisiana.
AROUND the WATERCOOLER: Life after poker.
STRAY THOUGHTS: The Circle of Trust.

SPONSOR’S MESSAGE - Sporttrade was borne out of the belief that the golden age of sports betting has yet to come. Combining proprietary technology, thoughtful design, and capital markets expertise, our platform endeavors to modernize sports betting for a more equitable, responsible, and accessible future.

Sporttrade’s newest feature, The Tape, prints all trades made on the app in real-time.

Maine Finally Gets a Retail Sportsbook

With the opening of a sports betting bar at newly opened Oddfellahs in Portland, a retail sportsbook has finally opened in Maine. I say finally because the state legalized sports betting in May 2022, and mobile betting went live in November 2023.

The sportsbook is run by Caesars, one of two operators (DraftKings is the other) currently licensed in Maine. But the real story is the process.

The long leadup to retail betting (more than two years after legalization) intersects with another story Straight to the Point has been covering: the internal strife in the Maine Gambling Control Unit centered around Executive Director Milton Champion. Champion was the subject of a letter of “no confidence” signed by all nine state investigators, who claim he has created a “toxic work environment.”

As I noted in June, Maine State Sen. Joe Baldacci openly questioned why the MGCU took so long to authorize retail sportsbooks.

“It is both surprising and unacceptable that not a single retail operator has commenced operations,” Baldacci said, intimating the delay was not a coincidence. “There’s no comparison; there’s no other place where you could find this kind of stagnation.”

Austin Muchemore, vice president and general manager of Hollywood Casino, concurred, saying, “We remain committed to constructive dialogue with all stakeholders to support a smooth implementation of retail sports betting at Hollywood Casino as soon as possible.”

However, it was not one of Maine’s two commercial casinos where the first retail sportsbook opened. It was a bar. Maine’s two casinos are still devoid of sports betting.

MLB Players’ Union Sues Sports Betting Companies

The Major League Baseball Players Association has filed two separate lawsuits against several sports betting and daily fantasy sports operators. The suits, filed Monday, claim “DraftKings, FanDuel, Underdog, and bet365 wrongfully used Major League Baseball players’ images and likenesses,” per New York Times reporting.

One lawsuit was filed against DraftKings and Bet365 in Philadelphia federal court, and another named FanDuel and Underdog Fantasy (a newsletter sponsor) in a New York state court in Manhattan.

The MLB Players’ Union claims that the “defendants’ use of player images within their sportsbook platforms is not merely informational—it is promotional.”

The Philadelphia lawsuit also highlights an asymmetry in how sportsbooks offer bets on NFL and MLB, as reported by the New York Times:

“Indeed, neither DraftKings Sportsbook nor the bet365 platforms feature player images of any kind for football, despite the fact that the 2024-25 NFL season recently began and the same types and breadth of bets are available on the platforms for football as they are for baseball, and despite the fact that the NFL is the most popular sport to bet on in America. Defendants are instead using MLB player images on their platforms for their own commercial advantage, as a means of associating their platforms more closely with these MLB players, to promote the use of their platforms and entice users to place bets when on the websites or apps.”

The lawsuit comes on the heels of the NFL Players’ Union filing suit against DraftKings for breach of contract over its now-defunct ReignMakers NFT business. That suit claims DraftKings failed to compensate NFL players for using their name, image, and likeness.

From my August report on the Reignmakers lawsuit:

Per SBC Americas, DraftKings notified “the players’ organization on July 30 that it would be closing down the project and had no plans to pay what was remaining on the contract.”
The NFLPA argues that “Buyers’ remorse, however, is not a basis to terminate a contract. Here, DraftKings–a sophisticated and amply-resourced gaming behemoth–assumed the risks inherent in its product save for carefully negotiated and narrow termination grounds.”

SPONSOR’S MESSAGE - Join 100s of operators automating their trading with OpticOdds.

Real-time data. Proven trading tools. Built by experts. Meet us at SBC Lisbon & G2E Vegas. Join top operators at www.opticodds.com.

Michigan Man Arrested Over Fraudulent Sports Betting Deposits

A 38-year-old Michigan man, Jeffrey Sacco, is accused of using a system vulnerability to fraudulently deposit $2 million into his Caesars sportsbook account in April 2023.

According to the local press, after making more than $2 million in fictitious deposits, “He placed 10,000 bets within 16 days—that’s about 26 bets an hour. The bets wagered more than $88 million. He then allegedly transferred more than $521,000 into his personal account before ceasing activity on the platform.”

Sacco has been charged with the following felonies:

One count of Larceny by Conversion
Three counts of Gambling Activity-Felony Violation
Four counts of Using a Computer to Commit a Crime

The sheer volume of deposits and bets didn’t go unnoticed.

As Underdog Fantasy’s (a newsletter sponsor) Dillon Borgida tweeted about the revelation, “Woah — unsure how this wouldn’t have been flagged in real-time. $2m in deposits in 16 days is an extreme outlier and potentially the biggest player on the site. Kinda says more about the book than the player.”

However, this is far from the first instance of someone getting into hot water after placing an extreme amount of wagers. Recall the case of Amit Patel, who pleaded guilty to stealing $22 million from the Jacksonville Jaguars virtual credit program he oversaw to cover gambling losses.

Quick Hitter: Bovada Pulls Out of Three More States

Bovada has pulled out of three more states. According to Robert Linnehan of Sports Betting Dime, Bovada has restricted access in Kansas, Louisiana, and Pennsylvania.

Linnehan confirmed all three states sent Bovada cease-and-desist letters.

That brings the number of Bovada no-go zones in the US up to 13, plus Washington, DC — Bovada limited access in just five states (Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, and Nevada) before Michigan got the C&D ball rolling in early June.

As Linnehan notes, a clear trend is emerging:

“State gaming commissions will send a cease-and-desist notice to the illegal gaming company, Bovada will never acknowledge receipt of the notice, and then one day will randomly add the state to its list of restricted markets.”

SPONSOR’S MESSAGE - Underdog: the most innovative company in sports gaming.

At Underdog we use our own tech stack to create the industry’s most popular games, designing products specifically for the American sports fan.

Join us as we build the future of sports gaming.

Visit: https://underdogfantasy.com/careers

Around the Watercooler

Social media conversations, rumors, and gossip.

My experience as a reformed professional poker player is very similar to Andrew Barber’s.

As good as poker was to me, it’s a hard way to make an easy living, and staying in the poker mindset makes it difficult to engage with non-poker players.

You think differently. The game is you vs. the world, so you become isolated. You’re awake at different hours (basically working the second and third shifts). You’re constantly gambling or around gambling, which can easily lead to problematic play (I know a lot of winning poker players who give it all back at other games before they leave the casino). And unless you are the most emotionally stable person on earth, your mood is seriously impacted by your results.

Add all that together, and you start to see why Lee Jones penned this important column about suicide in the community:

“In the 35 years that I've been closely involved in the poker community, I've lost track of the number of poker professionals and semi-pros we've lost to suicide. So often, we're not even sure it's suicide because there's still a stigma around it, and families don't publicize it.”

As the late-Stu Ungar said:

“It’s hard work, gambling… playing poker. Don’t let anyone tell you different. Think about what it’s like sitting at a poker table with people whose only goal is to cut your throat, take your money, and leave you out back talking to yourself about what went wrong inside. That probably sounds harsh, but that’s the way it is at the poker table. If you don’t believe me, then you’re the lamb that’s going off to the slaughter.”

Honestly, if you come out on the other side of a professional poker career healthy and happy, consider yourself lucky.

Stray Thoughts

I recently spoke to GeoComply founder David Briggs (the podcast went live Monday), and during our conversation, I realized how much of an outlier I was in 2013.

When New Jersey’s online casinos went live in late 2013, almost every media outlet (meaning affiliates because there was next to zero interest from the mainstream press) was busy trying to figure out how to capitalize on this new opportunity. There was so little interest that NJ.com hired me to cover the launch of online casinos in the state.

Very few people asked questions about geolocation technology, payment processing, and know-your-customer checks. It was business as usual: what sites were live, what bonuses they offered, what marketing deal was signed, and how to get people interested in registering an account — so still not much different today.

I was one of the very few people asking questions, and it’s how I first started talking to David Rebuck and his team in New Jersey, as well as companies like GeoComply and other firms in the payments and KYC fields.

More often than not, these conversations were just background or off-the-record conversations—not for an article, but to discuss different things going on and offer our different perspectives.

I remember how little I knew about these topics and how much my eyes were opened. Every subsequent conversation gave me a deeper insight into how the industry functions “under the hood,” which, quite frankly, is where it matters.

I learned that GeoComply has to drive the borders of locales it geofences. I also learned about credit card codes, the difference between full social and the last four digits, and public databases.

To give you an idea of how rare that was, when I introduced myself to Eric Weiss (then DGE Technical Services Chief and now Managing Director at IC360) at G2E in 2014, he looked at my badge and said, “Oh, you were the guy who emailed all those questions.” I suspect he remembered my name because so few people asked those questions (it was about the DGE’s software testing process) then or now.

If you ever wonder why my legislative predictions are more accurate than most, it’s because I asked the same type of questions and learned from lawmakers in multiple states why bills that look good on paper blow up and how to parse what I call “lawmaker-speak.” The only way you get there is to cultivate relationships and trust.

My nana was a terrific cook, but if you weren’t in the “circle of trust,” she would always leave an ingredient or a step out of the recipe she passed on. If yours turned out as good as hers did, you know she trusted you.

I’m no expert, but I’m not ignorant either, and it’s because I asked and continue to ask questions and build relationships. Those questions and conversations can’t be turned into billable articles, and there is no short-term payoff. So, I understand why many people see them as a bad use of time, but without them, you’ll never get into the circle of trust.