Gambling News Flash: Fixed-Odds Horse Betting Heading to NJ, Penn Buys The Score
A new form of horse betting is coming to New Jersey. Those looking to bet on the ponies are going to be happy with the news. We’ll start there as we recap this week’s key casino headlines.
Gov. Murphy Signature Legalizes Fixed-Odds Horse Racing
Fixed-odds horse racing is finally set to touch down in New Jersey. With New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy signing this bill, residents of age in the Garden State will soon be able to lock in horse odds at the time of betting. This bill was supposed to be signed a couple of months ago but there were too many bills trying to get thrown together towards the end of their legislative period, which ended up delaying it.
What NJ Tracks Will Offer Fixed-Odds Horse Betting?
Monmouth Park intends to be the first of the three NJ racetracks to offer fixed odds, possibly before the 2021 horse racing season comes to a close. Freehold Raceway and Meadowlands Racetrack are the other two Garden State locations. As far as how fixed-odds wagering will be rolled out, Monmouth Park plans include designated betting windows on the grandstand and clubhouse levels. Additionally, there will be TV screens displaying current odds.
The minimum wager is set at $1 for now and anybody over the age of 21 can place bets.
BetMakers, an Australian-based horse betting company, recently signed a 10-year deal with the state of New Jersey to handle the betting lines for the tracks. DraftKings, BetMGM and FanDuel are all likely to join the mix of sportsbooks for horse racing in the near future as well, so if you see it pop up on their websites, you’ll now know why.
Nevertheless, New Jersey is set to become the first state to officially legalize fixed-odds horse racing.
Penn National Purchases Score Media
Penn National Gaming has decided that they want to take a massive step forward with their acquisition of Score Media and Gaming. They had to shell out $2 billion in cash and equity in order to finalize this transaction, which adds to their growing portfolio of content and gaming, including Barstool Sports. Penn National seems to be looking to take advantage of single-game betting makings its way to Canada as this could pave the way for them to make inroads in the North.
In case you’re wondering about the gaudy figure, it is quite the impressive haul for TheScore. Penn had previously acquired Barstool Sports for roughly $163 million. theScore has reset the market for these types of acquisitions, so other companies can now look to surpass their figures.
The combination of theScore and Barstool Sports now gives Penn access to plenty of content as well as potential customers. Sports fans love both brands and now if Penn can convert them into sports betting customers, they’ll easily be able to justify these purchases.
Women’s Sporting Events Fueled Olympic Betting
The Olympics aren’t often a big event in the sports betting community. Other than a few events like golf, tennis, and basketball, it’s mostly amateurs participating and it’s hard to handicap the matchups. Nonetheless, it’s interesting to note that it was the women’s events that fueled betting at the Tokyo 2020 Games.
According to PointsBet Sportsbook, Women’s Soccer and Women’s Beach Volleyball were among the surprising leaders in bets, coming in second and third, respectively. A big factor may have been the time difference between the United States and Japan. The men’s basketball team, which eventually did win the gold medal, played most of their games in the hours of the early morning on the East Coast in the Eastern Time Zone. The men’s basketball team did end up pulling in the most action at PointsBet in terms of the Olympics as they reeled in 26% of the bets.
One big factor favoring the ladies at the 2020 games is that many of this year’s stars were females. That includes swimmer Katie Ledecky, gymnast Suni Lee, and women’s volleyball duo Alix Klineman and April Ross.
Lead image credit: AP Photo/Seth Wenig