Spin Cycle: Federal Sports Betting Bill, Presidential Election Odds Movement Highlight Week In Gambling

Welcome to “Spin Cycle,” Casino Reports’ weekly Friday roundup of all things impactful, intriguing, impressive, or idiotic in the gambling industry. Pull up a chair, grab a stack of chips and a glass of your beverage of choice, and take a spin with us through this week’s news cycle …

SAFE or out?

The Supporting Affordability and Fairness with Every Bet (SAFE Bet) Act was formally announced by Rep. Paul Tonko and Sen. Richard Blumenthal on Thursday, and if passed, it would flip the sports betting industry on its head.

The bill proposes that states be forced to apply to the Department of Justice to be allowed to offer sports betting and be forced to meet a series of minimum standards. Those standards would include a prime-time advertising ban, a ban on ads during sporting events, limits on terms such as “bonus” and “no sweat,” limits on celebrity endorsements, mandated affordability checks for would-be bettors, and a ban on credit card deposits.

Unsurprisingly, the American Gaming Association was not too keen on the announcement.

“Today’s regulated sports wagering operators are contributing billions in state taxes across the U.S., protecting consumers from dangerous neighborhood bookies and illegal offshore websites, and working diligently with over 5,000 state and tribal regulators and other stakeholders to ensure a commitment to responsibility and positive play,” Chris Cylke, AGA senior vice president of government relations, said in a press release. “Six years into legal sports betting, introducing heavy-handed federal prohibitions is a slap in the face to state legislatures and gaming regulators who have dedicated countless time and resources to developing thoughtful frameworks unique to their jurisdictions, and have continued to iterate as their marketplaces evolve.”

Wild week in election betting

Prior to Tuesday night’s televised debate between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris, Trump was favored to win November’s election almost everywhere odds were posted, and exchange operator Kalshi was poised to offer markets on the outcome.

By the end of the week, both storylines had been flipped.

Kalshi had a concept of a plan to post election markets, and it did so for a few hours, but by Friday morning, the operator’s website featured the message: “Trading is paused on elections.kalshi.com pending court process.” The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission secured an administrative stay on its court order to prevent election wagering, so Kalshi — along with Interactive Brokers, which was preparing to launch election bets — is in a holding pattern.

But where odds can be found — at regulated and unregulated sportsbooks outside the U.S. and at PredictIt — the debate, perhaps coupled with the endorsement of Taylor Swift, turned Harris into the slight betting favorite again and Trump into the underdog.

At Pinnacle on Monday afternoon, Trump had -131 odds, and Harris was at +108. On Friday morning, Harris was priced at -126, Trump at +105. At PredictIt, where the markets had the race essentially dead even (give or take a point) heading into the debate, at press time Harris sat at 58 cents (equivalent to -138 odds) and Trump was down to 46 cents (+117).

Following the Electric current

Last month, DraftKings introduced a form of peer-to-peer poker through its casino app in Michigan, and it was widely believed DK would follow that debut by bringing “Electric Poker” to other legal iGaming states. It now appears Connecticut is on deck.

Pokerfuse reported this week that Electric Poker is undergoing testing in the Nutmeg State. Online poker is legal in Connecticut, but no operators currently offer it there. Fanatics allows sports betting only through its partnership with the CT Lottery, and FanDuel and DraftKings both have sports betting and iCasino via partnerships with Mohegan Sun and Foxwoods, respectively.

Electric Poker is a variation on poker that feels somewhat like a slot machine or casino table game in that luck plays an outsized role compared to traditional cash-game or tournament poker. These are three-player winner-take-all sit & gos where the prize amount is determined by a pre-game wheel spin and the blind structure forces extremely fast play. Electric Poker is more or less the same product as PokerStars’ Spin & Go games and WSOP Online’s Blast Poker.

If and when DraftKings’ Electric Poker launches in Connecticut, it would be the first form of regulated peer-to-peer iPoker in the state.

Really, bet365?!

And the Shady Operator of the Week Award goes to … bet365, which needed some arm-twisting to pay out perfectly legitimate wagers at the price at which they were made.

When 49ers running back Christian McCaffrey was surprisingly ruled out about an hour before the kickoff of Monday night’s game against the Jets, San Francisco second-string RB Jordan Mason’s rushing yards prop was over/under 13.5 yards at bet365. The sportsbook soon changed his prop to over/under 62.5 yards when it became clear he would have a dramatically increased workload — but not before plenty of bettors were able to pounce on the original line.

After the fact, bet365 sent an email to those who bet the over on the original line that their bets would be settled at -5000 odds, not the -110 odds at which they placed the wagers. This was not exactly well received. So bet365 announced Tuesday morning it would honor the wagers as placed and apologized for the “confusion.”

This incident came just a few days after the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement hit bet365 with a $33,000 fine for taking bets on completed events.

A bit of editorializing: Customers expect more from an operator in the regulated industry. That said, the fact that this took place within the regulated industry helps explain why customers ultimately received their due winnings.

The Shuffle: Other news and views

LET’S TALK LIMITS: On second try, Massachusetts meeting on bettor limiting amplifies both sides

FAREWELL TO A PALACE PRESIDENT: Caesars Palace’s longest-serving president dies at 71

OH MY GOD, BECKY: Reel Lives: Becky Liggero Fontana on memorable interviews, Bodog parties, and more

STEP ON THE SCALE: Responsible Gaming Intervention Effectiveness Scale

EVERYTHING’S BIGGER IN TEXAS: $800 million Mega Millions jackpot, seventh-largest ever, won in Texas

BOARDED UP BOARDWALK: Could Atlantic City see more casino closings when New York gambling halls open?

OPTION EXERCISED: Fox confirms plan to purchase 18.6% FanDuel stake amid valuation dispute

DOG DAYS: Arizona approves Underdog Fantasy’s pick’em-style contest

OH, HI: Inside the unique details, timing of Ohio’s new online casino bill

OFFSHORE BETTING DIES IN DARKNESS?: Legal sports betting was supposed to end the black market. It didn’t.

COURSE CORRECTION: ROGA launches national responsible gaming education program for college students

YELLOW CARD: Germany: Football games under match-fixing investigation

LET THE VOTERS DECIDE: Missouri keeps sports betting and casino proposals on ballot despite legal challenges

HACK JOB: Over 55,000 affected in Riverside Resort & Casino data breach

THE MORE THINGS CHANGE … : Las Vegas appears to be welcoming back organized crime, California’s bookies

FUN FOR THE WHOLE FAMILY: The casino close to home bets big on go-karts and water parks

BIG-MONEY MOVES: Wynn Resorts launches $800M public offering following $130M federal settlement

EMPERORS AND PRESIDENTS: Caesars betting kiosks to replace GambetDC’s in US capital

TOUGH LUCK, SKILL GAMES: Kentucky AG isn’t buying that new skill games are different from the old ones

BETTING ON HIMSELF: PENN CEO buys company shares worth $1 million

DO SHOOT THE MESSENGER: DraftKings facing Massachusetts regulatory scrutiny over mistaken email

The Bonus Round

Completing the Spin Cycle with some odds and ends and our favorite social media posts of the week:

• If any professional boxer was going to get his own branded online slots title, it would have to be the one who calls himself “Money,” right? Retired (though he still fights exhibitions against grandsons of mob bosses) Hall of Famer Floyd Mayweather has his own iSlot coming by the end of the year, Games Global announced this week, though the title of the game has not yet been revealed. “We are extremely excited about this knockout collaboration,” Games Global Chief Product Officer Andy Booth said in a press release. “With his successful career, Floyd Mayweather embodies triumph and high stakes, which resonate well with the competitive and premium nature of the iGaming industry.”

• From Nevada to Oklahoma, a few lucky souls put the “fortune” in Wheel of Fortune last month, as game developer IGT announced that four seven-figure jackpots were hit on Wheel of Fortune slots in August. The biggest was for a little over $1.3 million in Choctaw, Oklahoma, followed by a $1.14 million win outside Lake Tahoe, a $1.06 million score at the Palazzo in Vegas, and a $1.05 million hit in Reno.

• It’s not quite “one night only” … but it’s close. A downtown Las Vegas hotel that doesn’t normally offer gambling, the Gold Spike and Oasis Hotel, will offer it only on Sept. 30 and Oct. 1, thanks to the Las Vegas City Council issuing a temporary license. Why the return of gambling to Gold Spike for just two days? Well, the property holds a gaming license due to grandfather status, but it’s set to expire soon if no gambling takes place there. So, get some slots and tables up and running for a couple of days, and you keep the license intact in case you want it later and to help the property’s eventual sale value.

• It’s Emmy Awards weekend, but we don’t have to wait for Sunday’s show for some industry news related to the Emmys. The Michigan Gaming Control Board has received a Michigan Chapter Emmy Award from the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences for its “Don’t Regret the Bet” responsible gambling campaign. As for the big show on Sunday: Look for The Bear to win most of the comedy awards best its second season was extraordinary (even if it isn’t a comedy), look for Shogun to win a bunch of drama awards because Succession is over and this is the show the critics have crowned (it was “meh” if you ask me), and if you like a longshot bet, take a stab on Ripley for Best Limited or Anthology Series. Baby Reindeer is the favorite and it had a far larger cultural footprint, but … at +450 according to Gold Derby, I’d take a shot on the actual best show in the category (if I could legally wager on such things in my home state).