Point Blank – June 6/7 Weekend
Nevada #443: Is this the Home of the Brave?” (don’t get too excited just yet)…The PB Weekend edition
The exciting news coming out of the Nevada legislature this week is the passage of Senate Bill 443, which formally legalizes groups to be formed for the purpose of making pooled wagers into the legal Race and Sports books around the state. An article by Howard Stutz in the Las Vegas Review-Journal offered: “Several experts estimated the handle — the amount wagered on sports — could triple in the state over the next five years, fueled by entity wagering.”
The not-so-exciting news was the passage of the same bill. It leaves one only half satiated, glad to have had a bite, but wanting more.
Is it a step forward? Yes. Is it as big of a step as it could have been? No. Is it an awkward step that could leave both the state and the Sports Book operators so off balance that they end up tripping over it? On a three-way line, that might actually be the favorite.
So let’s break it down. Is Nevada now truly “Home of the Brave” when it comes to sports wagering? Time for a little musical interlude. No, it will not be a riff on the national anthem, although Hendrix at Woodstock would fit. Instead, just a cheap excuse to tie in something that you should all listen to, but won’t realistically ever have a proper connection to the sporting world. So as you read on, to add dignity to the weekend “None but the Brave”, one of Bruce Springsteen’s best, but also one that did not make the cut for inclusion on any albums. Performed live for a benefit at the Asbury Park Covention Hall in December of 2003 –
That is the Max Weinberg 7 backing him up, Eddie Manion taking the lead on sax, and yes, there is Nils Lofgren sitting in on acoustic guitar. A nice background as we all begin to wonder who will be brave in Nevada, as the side-room betting action already focuses in on some that almost assuredly won’t be.
What It Means
You can now bet the Nevada sports books with money coming in from anywhere in the world. Of course, that has already been happening for decades, but now you can do it with the seal of approval. You just have to clean it up first. That also inherently means that it will get tougher on those that did not get such a seal. So form your group, and then apply to the Gaming Control Board (not directly to one of the Sports Books), with the following –
The name, residential address, copy of a valid photo identification which evidences that the person is at least 21 years of age, and Social Security number or individual taxpayer identification number, of each of the business entity’s equity owners, holders of indebtedness, directors, officers, managers and partners, anyone entitled to payments based on the profits or revenues and any designated individuals.
And bring a check for $1,000 for the initial registration, plus a $500 annual renewal.
This may sound like a lot of paperwork, with every guy from your rec league softball team in Schenectady that is ponying up a nickel to help build the fund having to be recorded, but keep in mind that Nevada must draft something that will withstand Federal scrutiny. Any violation of the above is a Class D felony, but enforcement will be next to impossible outside of the United States. Will a consortium of 16 in Hong Kong truly register each member, or just a small handful? I think you know the answer to that. There will need to be one person from any such group inside the state to place the wagers (there are already those residing here working on ways to become “agents”). Not a bad place to live, in terms of cost of living and food/entertainment options. Summer runs too long, but better a too-long summer than a too-long winter.
So Ya Wanna Make Some Bets?
Easy enough. Form your company, get all of the documentation in place, get your approvals, and then bring the suitcase. Not quite. Once you have formed your company, you must then -
Maintain an account in this State with a bank or other financial institution having a principal office, branch or agency located in this State, from which it shall transfer and receive all money used in wagering with an operator of a race book or sports pool; and make any records pursuant to this subsection available for review by the Board or its agents.
What this means in practice will develop over time, since the wording was not as efficient as it could have been. But the gist is “No Cash” unless you are willing to bring it in through the banking system. Which is why the projections by that Review-Journal article in the first paragraph are not reasonable. I understand why it needs to be done this way, and it is still a step forward, but not a major one. There is a lot of cash being bet off-shore that will remain cash being bet off-shore.
But now some of the questions that have gone unanswered so far, largely because not all of this has been thought out. Do you transfer to the bank, then take out cash or a cashiers check, and go over to the Sports Book to deposit? Or will there be a Bank/Sports Book transfer mechanism in place? If Nevada wants to truly “get in the game” in an industry that should ideally value customer service, there is a need to do what some of the better off-shores began doing more than a decade ago – offer book-to-book transfers, or book-bank-book.
One of the hassles of Nevada account wagering is having a big winning day at one property, while losing big at another. It means having to withdraw winnings from one account to reload the other, which can tie up valuable time. The state can make that process an easier one, though undoubtedly it will come as a surcharge for those transfers.
OK, So You Have Done Everything Right…
And you are ready to start betting. Your softball team decided that you were the ideal one to move to Las Vegas, being young handsome and single, and you jumped at the chance. You’ll get accustomed to the summers. Registration? Check. Banking? Check, literally. Now you are all set. Time to set up the accounts and get cracking. Except that no one has to actually accept your wagers. It is up to each Sports Book operation to decide their own in-house goals on this front, and since not many have been terribly aggressive in growth attempts over the past decade, there were not a lot of champagne corks being popped. Cantor Gaming got behind the bill, and helped to write the legislation, but there were no cheerleaders with the emblem of their host casino seen shaking their pom-poms this week.
The sad truth is that given the potential, Nevada is not a friendly place to bet sports at this moment. There is a vastly-untapped potential, with some quality people in place, and the proper technologies to facilitate the kind of bigger action that could come in, but there are also far more bean counters than sports guys, especially at the megaliths that dominate the Strip (Cantor is still the only operator on the entire Strip that has an app), who realize that bigger handle equates to more risk, and more operational expense. And their elevators stop at higher floors when they go to work each morning than the sports guys. Many of the Goliaths will not react quickly to this, so when you hear the buzz about all of the excitement as football season approaches, take it with a grain of salt.
Nevada 443 could be significant down the road. Not much is going to happen in the immediate future. For some places, not much will happen at all, ever. But with the local industry having lagged behind the times, since Michael Roxborough saw the writing on the wall, and began indulging in domestic Thai cuisine (some of us are not overly jealous, we still have Lotus of Siam), the fact that a positive step was taken at all is a good thing. Now let’s get the players in the industry to make it be a better one.
And Now for the Weekend Ahead
Obviously nothing for the Saturday MLB Board yet; Friday’s first pitches not having been thrown. But since the sorting through that bill helped create this Weekend Edition, let’s use this as the posting thread for the Saturday and Sunday MLB. I will fill here with an “In the Sights” after the Friday box scores have been logged if something brings appeal, and a few of the overnights do show promise.
As for the post-column thread, the summer schedule is looking this way – a volunteer gig will have me gone most Saturday’s, to a lovely place outside of cell coverage, but I will be around the desk until about 7 AM Pacific. I will try to address anything that comes in before then, but Sundays should be fine – I expect to be at the desk through first pitch on most of those days.
In the Sights…
And now time to play. The markets are helping to create something this morning, a push to the Dodgers and Clayton Kershaw that is opening up an opportunity behind #963 St. Louis, and Jaime Garcia. The Run Line has been pushed to as low as +1.5 -128, with plenty of -135 available, and that is a good path to get to cashiers window.
The Los Angeles offense is mired in a prolonged slide, which naturally makes breaking games open difficult – the tally would be 5-16 as -1.5 over the last 21 games, and in the 17 in that span played somewhere other than Coors Field, the Dodgers only managed 33 runs. In nine of those 17 they were held to one run or less, which meant no chance of covering a -1.5.
Take a close look as Garcia’s arc. He was only given two rehab starts before being sent out against the Mets, and was not ready, leading a most rare outing for him in which he had more BB than Ks (that had not happened since early May of 2012). But take a look since then, with the follow-ups being a pair of games in which he recorded nine Ks with no BB, and 24 ground-ball outs vs. only two in the air. He is on his game, and matches up well into an offense showing a most pronounced R/L bias that is natural based on the makeup – the Dodgers lead the Majors at an .806 OPS vs. right-handers, but that falls all the way down to .693 when the pitches come from the other side. Yes Kershaw is Kershaw, but his stuff is more than fully valued at this price point, and the Cardinals are one team that have shown no real intimidation against him.
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