It was Game of Thrones night at Citizens Bank Park last night. The intros didn’t disappoint. Continue Reading
I spent the past two days at Harrah’s in Atlantic City, where the top brass in the legal sports betting industry were all present for the East Coast Gaming Congress.
The annual event is a meeting of the minds for all forms of gaming, from slots to casino hospitality, most of which doesn’t interest me even a little bit. But this year the focus was almost exclusively on sports gambling. It’s perhaps only a coincidence that Monmouth Park and the Borgata, a 17-minute walk from Harrah’s (speaking from experience), started taking bets during day two of the conference, just hours before Governor Phil Murphy addressed attendees.
Why did I go? Two reasons, to be honest:
- To learn about where the industry is headed and pass along those findings to you, specifically because Philly is at the epicenter of the shift toward legal sports betting since Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware will likely be the first three states to allow it following the Supreme Court’s ruling last month.
- Business interests, Holmes.
Right now, things are confusing to consumers and would-be bettors. When can I bet? How? Where? And beyond that, just have pervasive and what forms will sports betting take in the US?
I’m here to summarize the event and answer your questions. Continue Reading
We’ve come full circle. Hold up wait a minute! Continue Reading
That there is New Jersey governor Phil Murphy signing into law the sports betting bill.
It passed last week and was just waiting to be signed by the gov. Under the law, sports betting will now be fully legal in New Jersey, both at casinos and racetracks, and online, the latter of which can go live in as little as 30 days (in other words, in time for football season).
Monmouth Park plans to go live on Thursday morning.
Online sports betting in New Jersey: you’ll have to be in the state to place a bet. Sites and apps will use geofencing, similar to how they do with daily fantasy sports, to determine if you are in-state.
DraftKings and William Hill are already positioned to be players here. They’ve partnered with Resorts and Monmouth Park, respectively. Online sportsbooks, like the ones we expect to see from DraftKings and William Hill, will have to be backed by licensed operations, so it remains to be seen how these sites and will look and feel. William Hill already has a live app in Nevada, but DraftKings has no sports betting platform yet, so it could be subset of its current platform, a separate app, or a co-branded experience with Resorts.
Here’s the full text of the bill:
We’ve put together a full New Jersey sports betting guide listing which platforms have partnered with which casinos. Check it out to figure out where, when and how you can bet. You can also sign up for our email list to get developments on where you can bet in New Jersey:
Legal sports betting began this week in Delaware, where in-person, casino-based gambling is now available.
Yesterday, the NJ senate approved a regulation to allow casino and online sports gambling. The bill is just waiting to be signed into law my Governor Phil Murphy, who today said he won’t sit on it for too long. From NJ.com:
“I want sports betting,” Murphy said during a news conference in New Brunswick. “Believe me a I want to place the first bet in New Jersey if I can. But we want to make sure we do it right. We just got the bill. We’re going through it, and we’re not gonna sit on it.
Asked if he will take the entire 45 days he has to take action on the bill, Murphy said: “I sure as heck would hope not.”
The remarks come a day after both houses of the state Legislature voted overwhelmingly to pass the bill, which would regulate and tax such wagering online and in person at the Garden State’s casinos and racetracks.
It’s unclear why he appears to be stalling, but sports betting is coming to New Jersey very, very soon, likely within just days.
With Pennsylvania perhaps next up to legalize sports betting, Philly is at the MF-ing epicenter of this movement. We’re putting together a series of pages showing where, when and how you can bet in each of the three states. Thanks to our friend Mike Lyon, a local attorney, who has helped us put together both the legal sports betting overview and the New Jersey sports betting page. We also have one for Delaware, and a how-to bet on sports guide for beginners.
You can check out each of those pages here:
Woj dropped a little bit of an incendiary device during a live appearance with Scott Van Pelt last night:
"Brett Brown was never Bryan Colangelo's coach or Jerry Colangelo's coach. Their plan was for Mike D'Antoni to be the coach, but he got the Houston job. The thought was they'd get their own coach in there, and they targeted Jay Wright of Villanova." pic.twitter.com/HXtXCOYvrF
— Joe Giglio (@JoeGiglioSports) June 8, 2018
“Brett Brown was never Bryan Colangelo’s coach, or Jerry Colangelo’s coach. And when they came in – when Jerry Colangelo took over – he put Mike D’Antoni on Brett Brown’s staff. Mike D’Antoni wasn’t put there just to be the assistant coach. There was a plan Mike D’Antoni would become the head coach, but Mike D’Antoni got the Houston Rocket job. And even through the great progress they made this year, getting to the second round of the playoffs, winning 50+ regular season games, there was always a thought in Colangelo’s mind they would get their own guy in there. And the guy they had always targeted, I’m told, was Jay Wright at Villanova. But they underestimated how popular Brett Brown was with the fans, ownership, and the players. And the spirit with which Brett Brown carries himself has permeated that organization.”
Those guys.
It was unearthed during the sleuthing of the last week that Bryan Colangelo’s wife, Barbara Bottini, knew Mike D’Antoni well, apparently from his days in Italy, and had requested of her husband and father-in-law, in this jacked up basketball dynasty, to take care of him. Hence how D’Antoni wound up coaching the Suns and wound up with the Sixers, so the story goes. So D’Antoni, a fellow Italian, being pegged to replace Brett Brown comes as hardly a shock.
Ditto with two-time National Champion, two-time Naismith National Coach of the Year, and John R. Wooden Legends of Coaching award winner, Jay Wright. He has ties with USA Basketball and, ergo, the Colangelo’s. In fact, I wrote this just a few months ago:
Before the Sixers finished the season on a tear and solidified Brett Brown’s job for their next two championships, one could argue that the Sixers job could have presented just that scenario. They are young, play a wide open, three-point system familiar to Jay, and are run by two Villanova guys (Scott O’Neil and Chris Heck) and the Colangelos, one of whom (Jerry) has deep ties to USA Basketball, for which Jay has been a coach, and was sitting behind Villanova’s bench during the National Championship. That would’ve been the team. But not now– it’s Brown’s job.
I DON’T KNOW WHY YOU’D READ ANY OTHER SITE!
Rather, now, D’Antoni is coaching the Rockets, likely to perennial contendership without ever being able to win the big one. Jay Wright is watching Phillies games with his dog. And Brett Brown has absorbed even more power in the vacuum left behind by the Colangelo clan. Good riddance, bad sirs.
The Eagles killed the Patriots.
Julian Edelman is facing a four-game suspension for violating the league’s substance policy. He is appealing the decision. This comes out just as Tom Brady returns to official team workouts.
I can’t believe the Patriots cheated.
Fun wrinkle: Edelman uses Tom Brady’s health guru, Alex Guerrero, whom he called “Mr. Miyagi” in April:
“There’s always going to be those types of things,” Edelman said of Guerrero last November. “If it helps you, then it helps you and Tom [Brady] is a living proof of how that has helped his career. I am a huge advocate of it. I feel like it helps me with a lot of my stuff and I like consulting with Alex and those guys over there because I’ve seen through a lot of the rehabs that they have done and that it’s been unbelievable.”
Wax on, wax off, wax… right the fuck in your buttock with this needle. I’m speculating on how that went down.
Joshua Harris (?) helicopter leaving Sixers facility….My hat flew off and I blew back into another media member lol pic.twitter.com/EiG2mCMD0L
— Dave Uram (@MrUram) June 7, 2018
I am obsessed with Joshua Harris’ helicopter. Few things in Philly sports interest me more than it and the Sixers’ helipad. I could see him going full Bobby Axelrod and using it to drop his kids off at practice:
Er, maybe it’s best to avoid sports fields.
Fun fact: The helipad I believe is also used by nearby Cooper University Hospital (or a similar facility). Unclear which patron takes precedence.
