Sports betting off to a good start in Del. despite parlay betting limits

Sports betting off to a good start in Del. despite parlay betting limits The newly found sports betting lottery in Delaware appears to be off to a good start after the NFL Week 1 betting results were announced, despite the imposed limit on the sports betting options in front of the customers. According to the results posted by the Delaware lottery, the first week of operation of the new sports betting option brought in $257,870 in revenues for the state. Naturally the fact that the sports betting options were limited to a 3-game parlay minimum hurt the revenue the state was expecting from the introduction of the legalized sports betting. With most bettors savvy enough to wager on a single game, where the chance of winning is pretty much fifty-fifty, the rule of 3-game parlay certainly turned the odds against the gamblers in a big way.

Although the exact number of betting slips filled in in Delaware is unknown at this time, it's certain that if customers were allowed to wager on just a single game - the interest from the local gamblers and the profits for the state would have been times bigger. The 3-game parlay was imposed on the Delaware sports betting venue mostly thanks to the efforts by the NFL and other professional sports leagues. The initial plan was that sports betting on single game would be allowed in Delaware, but the leagues filed and won a lawsuit to forbid the state lottery to offer anything less than 3-game parlays to the bettors in the state. And with the ever increasing popularity of online sportsbooks such as Bookmaker and Bodog Sports, where one can not only bet on a single game but on virtually all sporting events in the world, the new sports betting lottery in Delaware seems less and less competitive and attractive to the modern gambler.

It was also surprising to see the sporting leagues insisting on the parlay form of betting as the only option. Everyone knows that the more games you wager on the less chance of winning (although the payout increases as well). With the single game bets, the gambler usually has even chance to win and lose, while the odds makers at the sportsbook are doing their best to adjust the odds in such way as to even both sides of the bet. This means that the sportsbooks attempt to have an equal number of winners and losers on a given single-game bet, while making money from the vig, i.e. the extra -10 points the bookie adds to the money line. The sports betting system in Delaware will now force the bettors to take on significantly more risk, which will result in very small number of winners and a lot of losers. We are keeping our eyes on the revenue numbers coming out of the Delaware sports betting lottery to see if the revenue will grow on fall in the future, which will be the true testament of whether the legal sports betting in its current form in the state would survive.

Published on 09/21/2009