You’ll Have to Settle For Parlays in Delaware

Happy day for the opponents of sports gambling, as 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Theodore McKee went past merely granting the injunction against single-game sports wagers that the NFL, NBA, NHL, MLB and NCAA were seeking, but ruled the pro-gambling bill Delaware Gov. Jack Markell signed in May to be in violation of Professional Amateur Sports Protection Act, which effectively nullifies the decision U.S. District Court Judge Gregory M. Sleet reached earlier this month not to grant an injunction.↵↵And not a moment too soon. Delaware was set to start taking bets on single games on Sept. 1. The state, which has 14 days to appeal, will still be allowed to take parlay bets, because they ran a football-only parlay system for one year in the ‘70s. Curious, though, because if the idea is to keep people from bankrupting themselves by gambling, that’s an interesting tactic when the road to rack and ruin is paved by bad parlays.↵

↵↵And not only does it suck for fans -- Delaware gets to be doubly screwed on this deal too. Sorry, Delaware! ↵

↵↵⇥The sports lottery was estimated to bring in at least $53 million annually. The state’s three casinos spent about $12 million upgrading their facilities in preparation of the launch. At the heart of the arguments in the two-hour-long hearing was the legal interpretation of the federal ban on sports betting that went in place in 1992.↵↵

↵↵There’s little chance Delaware is just going to sit on the $12 million they lost in upgrade costs alone without pursuing this further, but even if it doesn’t entirely presage doom for gambling prospects in the state, it will severely protract the time until it could become a reality.↵

↵