Beating the Leagues at Their Own Game

In this hyper-political world the great art of argument can get lost (just read some of the takes on the NFL Anthem thing today for evidence of that).  But, sometimes something pops up that makes you smile.

Today, Senator Steve Sweeney of New Jersey proved he's got some major chops.

Strong opposition to sports leagues' request for sports betting fees from @NJSenatePres: pic.twitter.com/ELwsCN8V1O

— David Payne Purdum (@DavidPurdum) May 23, 2018

Arguments that involve a virtuous commodity are usually pretty difficult to combat, because if you come out against them you will be labelled as some sort of misanthrope (thanks Santa Anita).

Politico: "Children under 18 should be required to wear hockey helmets while walking the streets of New York. Data shows that severe head injuries will be cut in half."

Other Politico: "That's just dumb"

Politico: "What do you have against protecting our children?"

The sports leagues - smartly - have done similar with their wish for an integrity fee. If you are against giving them money, you are for corruption. It's wonderful framing by them, and it's a tough row to hoe for those taking the opposite side.

Someone in politics who clearly plays chess, not checkers, though, is Senator Sweeney. He's turned around the argument beautifully and made everyone think differently about a previously cut-and-dried subject.

And, as an added bonus, he's probably right.

If 89% of the money line action is on the Patriots and a call goes the Patriots way, does the public think a league that benefits monetarily from keeping 89% of the people happy had something to do with it?

Probably not. Hold it, now that I think about it..... maybe they did?

I think the way the leagues have approached sports betting has been insular, and not based on the pragmatic. Now, predictably, as they've lost the first argument they've moved on to regulatory capture and asking for a slice of revenues. One politician ain't playing that game, and is willing to offer arguments a whole lot of rational people can get behind.

Does the public really want the leagues to get a piece of betting action, when for the last 40 years they've been talking about how bad underground betting is for the integrity of the game? Or would they rather have revenues exempt from them, and centered on the companies and providers who have offered this service in an above board, integrous way for decades overseas?

Nice work Mr. Sweeney.

Snap Trends are a Horseplayer's Bread and Butter, Other Betting, Pffft

Half my timeline went bonkers today. The GOP took over the lead, according to Reuters, in the generic congressional ballot polling. This is pretty shocking (although the trend has been better for them) because the D lead in such polling has been in the teens, at times, over the last six months. And everyone knows the party in power loses seats to a pretty stout degree in mid-terms.

With the medium term trends, and this tightening, we'd expect a big change in the wagering, correct? Well, no. The market didn't even move.

We see this often in political betting, or long-term sports betting, and it is a wonderful, perfectly rational anchor in an irrational topsy-turvy twitter world.

Political bettors know the trends matter, but cohort changes that drive polls and polling in general are rarely trends, and are most-often noise. This is not even counting the concept of discounting, where an Access Hollywood tape means little when the person on the tape is saying exactly what you think he'd say.

Conversely, as horseplayers, we are opposite creatures. Short term trends or silly polls aren't there to be discounted, they're there to be acted upon.

That track bias you noticed in the first two, buttressed by your data and smarts regarding wind, or drying out Tapeta? Get off your ass and bet it, because it could mean a five figure day. If you're wrong, you'll lose a couple of races. So what, we're used to doing that.

When Woodbine trainer Richard Moreau was setting the world on fire in January and February of this year, winning at well over 30% with everything, you were probably firing.

One day he got cold, and well, he's never cold. So you, as a horseplayer, not a political bettor, paid attention and started fading everything.

He went 3 for his next 66. It might've made your month.

If you're a horseplayer, your bread and butter is betting trends; trends that happen in almost real time. There aren't a whole lot of betting games where that works. We should embrace it.

Ah, the NFL - Free Market Types, Until They're Not

We've spoken quite a bit about regulatory capture here on the blog. It's a relatively simple concept that has grown in importance over the last whatever years. I think we saw a little of this rear its head today (h/t to @racetrackandy), from the NFL Commissioner.

In "asking Congress" for betting regulation, Roger Goodell states four goals that are needed.

1. There must be substantial consumer protections;
2. Sports leagues can protect our content and intellectual property from those who attempt to steal or misuse it;
3. Fans will have access to official, reliable league data; and
4. Law enforcement will have the resources, monitoring and enforcement tools necessary to protect our fans and penalize bad actors here at home and abroad.

If you chuckled at a couple of those you aren't alone. I did too.

Leaving aside that current law, and its framework, takes care of most of these items (it's not like this hasn't been running in Vegas already, to the tune of $5B in handle a year, run by the same companies that will be running sports betting) there's some extra self-serving claptrap that's super interesting.

"Fans will have access to official, reliable league data," might make you scratch your head some,  because, simply, we have that already, and, in fact, much more than that. There are scores of companies who have mulched and chopped data; who have increased data flow, some making it an art form.

Why would something need to be regulated that has worked this perfectly for consumers, the NFL and the betting ecosystem?

In my view it's not a hard question to answer - the NFL wants to be Equibase. They're trying to put a whole lot of competitors out of business, and they're asking for the feds help to do it.

Sports betting, exchange wagering and DFS have all gone, or are going through this right now as we speak. It's why, say three or four years from now, it is anyone's guess what the landscape looks like. If you're hanging your hat on big revenues and 10 cent lines like they're a done deal, you should probably wait a little while. The leagues, wrapping themselves in some sort of consumer protection cloak, have a willing audience ready to do their bidding.