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Lottery Commission Strategic Plan Says Sports Betting In Oregon Could Be A Reality By 2020

Sierra Kennedy — Fri, 31 May 2019 15:35:00 +0000

The Oregon Lottery Commission’s long-term strategic plan indicates that the state was not only looking to implement a new virtual sports betting product in the near future but also that regulators have real sports betting lined up for a tentative 2020 rollout as well.

Though a few of these details have just been released, but the plan itself has been around for some time now, going back to well before the May 14, 2018, decision by the US Supreme Court to overturn the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act of 1992 (also known as PASPA). While it is true that Oregon, along with Nevada (of course), Delaware and Montana were grandfathered in by PASPA and allowed to continue offering regulating sports betting markets within their jurisdictions, it is also true that those states were pretty much locked in to what sports wagering activities they had already approved at the time PASPA went into effect. That means Nevada, which had long ago legalized all forms of sports betting, could basically do whatever it wanted, while the other three states only had a paltry smattering of legal ways for their residents and visitors to legally bet on sports.

Sports betting in Oregon took the form of a state lottery product called Sports Action, which focused exclusive on NFL contests and players, and it remained popular throughout its run from 1989 to 2007, though it was allowed to lapse and was not replaced. That said, Oregon’s lawmakers – and the Oregon Lottery Commission – did have comparatively broad powers in terms of what kinds of sports betting activities they wanted to allow, so long as they fall under the aegis of lotto-type games, random number generators, video lotteries (don’t call them slots!) and so on.

It should therefore not come as much of a surprise that the Oregon Lottery would be looking at rolling out a new product related to sports, even if that product – which has been described in local media as a “virtual football wagering game” – doesn’t feature real athletes, teams or games. What is a little bit more surprising, considering Oregon’s historical aversion to exercising the powers that it did actually have by being one of four states that didn’t have its rights unconstitutionally stripped from it by PASPA, is that the Beaver State is considering bringing back sports betting within the next few years.

“We have been interested and have been talking for some time now about reintroducing some level of sports-based play into our portfolio," Matt Shelby, the Oregon Lottery’s public information manager told local media representatives within hours of the Supreme Court’s May 14 decision to overturn PASPA.

Still, for all the apparent excitement that seems to be a-brewing, Shelby said that nobody at his office has gone all in as to the exact form of the new (and presumably conventional, real-world, single game) sports betting offering will be like. Shelby told reporters that the main directive is to “expand its portfolio” and “increase revenue.” Still, the Oregon Lottery, for all its vested authority to come out with any number of new wagering products, is going to need to work with other stakeholders on this project – the point being that the lotto is not going to be rushing into anything, no matter what legal rights Oregon has regarding sports betting.

“We've got some history there with a lottery offering, but just exactly what a new offering could look like is too early to say at this point,” Shelby said. “But [the Oregon Lottery is] very interested.

“Just because you can do something on paper doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a good idea. We have to work with the sports leagues, the NCAA, the governor’s office and everyone else to make sure we’re not getting ‘out over our skies.’”

Taking heed of the NCAA’s desires is nothing new for Oregon, which basically put the kibosh on the Sports Action lotto in 2007 in an effort to curry favor with the organizing body of college athletics for the purpose of trying to attract some NCAA championships. Things didn’t work out exactly as planned, but that didn’t stop Oregon from trying for the last 10 years or more to drum up more money coming in for the state’s university system, which struggles to meet its Title IX obligations without a sizeable injection of cash which, ironically, comes from the state lotto. Now that sports betting is by default legal for whatever state wants it and pretty much however it wants to do it, we will see if Oregon can take the ball and run with it by the time the state lottery’s arbitrary 2020 deadline rolls around or if they can pull it off before then.

A lot is riding on how the NCAA as an organization feels about the Supreme Court’s call to overturn PASPA, which was pretty much college athletics’ biggest protection against expansion of sports betting beyond Nevada in any meaningful sense. Oregon Lottery Commission member Chris Telfer, himself a former state legislator, indicated to reporters back home that everyone in a position to influence the future direction of the Beaver State’s stance on sports betting will be treading very carefully from here out. That is going to be of paramount importance so as not to upset what could prove to be a delicate balance between the leagues, the lotto, the government, the public and what could be the state’s future sportsbook operators.

“This gives us a green light from an optics standpoint,” Telfer said in an interview after the PASPA decision was released. “We’ve been directed to increase the size of the pie. This is a new market, and anything we do moving forward is to broaden the base of who is playing.”

Telfer said he and the other members of the Lottery Commission have already gone the rounds in discussing some limitations on what kinds of action on sports the state will be interested in taking, and collegiate athletics could definitively be among those prohibitions. That stands in stark contrast to states like Mississippi, which quite rightly recognizes where its bread is buttered come fall. Telfer also said that betting on the outcome of games might be off the table as well, leaving props or possibly over/unders as the way forward, but nothing is set in stone at this time.

Also up in the air is the delivery method for a fully fledged Oregon sportsbook run by the state lotto. Bets could, in theory, be placed a physical lottery retailers only, or Oregon could live up to its progressive reputation and stake a big claim in the booming mobile sports betting and online sportsbook marketplace by authorizing either or both of those options for players. Another consideration will be to see if the Oregon Lottery would remain the sole source for action on sports or if the state would allow tribal casino operators to open sportsbooks of their own as a way to increase foot traffic at the reservations’ resort casinos.

The Siletz Tribe, for one, is keenly interested in seeing what the Oregon Lottery Commission and the state’s lawmakers will decide on that front, as the prospect of a sportsbook could mean a substantial influx of new interest in the tribe’s casino properties. Additionally, tribal casinos in Oregon have pretty much maintained the right to offer any kind of game or wagering activities that the lottery can, which gives both parties plenty of wiggle room (and room to grow, if they can work together closely) in this new post-PASPA world.

“[The Tribal Council members] are very interested obviously,” Craig Dorsay, the attorney retained by the Siletz Tribe, told local news media reps when pressed on the tribe’s stance. “If the lottery wants to take that expansive definition, we’d love it.”

However, it’s not all roses with regard to sports betting in Oregon, as critics of the Beaver State delving into what could become an intensely competitive sports wagering industry with nearby states like California and Washington are becoming increasingly worried, particularly about the easy access with which problem gamblers could have soon.

"If Oregon goes down this path...it can have a profound impact on our state's culture and health,” said one of those vocal critics of sports betting, that being Problem Gambling Solutions’ president, Jeff Marotta. “I am hopeful before [sports betting is widely legalized] there will be a public debate, and as a democratic society we will choose which course to take with our eyes wide open and fully informed."

The post Lottery Commission Strategic Plan Says Sports Betting In Oregon Could Be A Reality By 2020 first appeared on SportsBettingInOregon.com.

SBTech Offered The Oregon Lottery Sports Betting Contract

Michael Molter — Fri, 19 Apr 2019 15:36:00 +0000

SBTech has contracts with Churchill Downs, the Golden Nugget, and Resorts Casino.
The Oregon Lottery would permit wagering online and in person.
The contract allows for a sliding revenue scale over the next three to five years.

SALEM, Ore. – In a memo sent to the Oregon Lottery Commissioners last week, some of the details surround legal Oregon sports betting came into light.

The state has not yet enacted any new laws approving a regulated industry; however, that isn’t stopping the state from finalizing the bidding process for their online betting platform.

With the mindset of a three-to-five year contract, including a tiered revenue-sharing agreement, the Oregon lottery and SBTech would be partnered for the launch of the industry.

The memo, which was delivered last week, explained how the terms and conditions of the deal have not been officially set, but are expected to be before the end of this month.

As it stands, anywhere from 9 – 11 % of the sports wagering revenue would be granted to SBTech, who was granted the license on a unanimous vote.

The bidding process claimed SBTech to be the leader amongst the other competitors such as Playtech and SG Digital. The main reason for the state choosing SBTech was their ability to offer a “turn-key, sports-betting platform and sportsbook for digital and on-property wagering.”

Though they are a European entity, SBTech has already established its footprint in the American sports betting market. With licenses in Mississippi and New Jersey, the company is already offering its services to state-licensed sportsbooks that are in operation.

“SBTech is consistent with our principles of fairness, integrity, security, and honesty,” said Farshad Allahdadi, the Chief Gaming Operations Officer of the Oregon Lottery, and author of the memo.

With only approval of the contract being awarded to SBTech from the Oregon Lottery, sports betting in Oregon would consist of both online and on location sportsbooks.

“We still have a goal of rolling something out to Oregonians in time for the 2019 NFL season,” said Oregon Lottery spokesman, Matthew Shelby.

At the end of 2018, estimations were reported from the Oregon Lottery that the state could see sports betting revenue reach $100 million after being established. Early market estimations see revenue reaching over $35 million in the first year.

One thing to keep an eye on moving forward is the regulations set forth about collegiate wagering. The state has a history of beef with the NCAA, as their grandfathered-in sports wagering parlay game drew major scrutiny from the league in the 1990s.

Now that sports betting is no longer federally illegal under PASPA, it will be interesting to see if Oregon restricts wagering options in any way.

The post SBTech Offered The Oregon Lottery Sports Betting Contract first appeared on SportsBettingInOregon.com.

Oregon’s Pac-12 Universities Could Win Big If The State Legalized Sports Betting

Daniel Borjas — Thu, 31 May 2018 15:33:00 +0000

Even though Oregon was one of the four states that was allowed to continue offering some form of sports betting even after the 1992 passage of the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act, the Beaver State never really ran with that opportunity.

Sure, there was the popular Sports Action product put out by the state lottery that centered on NFL contests and which lasted from 1989 until 2007, but it has not been replaced as yet. On the one hand, that left Oregon sports bettors with two choices: book a flight down to Las Vegas or head on over to a legal offshore sports betting site based in a foreign country. On the other hand, the lack of initiative regarding future developments for the sports lotto left some of its primary beneficiaries – those being Oregon’s Pac-12 colleges high and dry without one of their most reliable sources of income.

Now that PASPA, the aforementioned federal law banning sports betting legalization in 46 states, has been overturned by a monumental 6-3 majority decision by the US Supreme Court, it gives Oregon and every other state in the country the freedom to chart their own courses with regard to wagering on sports. The Beaver State may not have had much of a desire to continue with a sports lottery late last decade, but lawmakers at the Salem statehouse may want to strongly reconsider their position vis a vis sports betting this time around.

For one thing, if legislators were motivated enough they could probably broadly legalize and heavily regulate (and tax) sports betting in the very near term, and that could be a boon – if not an outright windfall – for the Pac-12 schools that are entitled to (but seldom get) 1 percent of lottery revenues.

Just consider this: if sports betting as an industry generates somewhere between $150 billion and $250 billion in annual handle (that’s the amount that sportsbook operators actually take in, not counting what they keep after making payouts to winning bettors), and most of that goes overseas and therefore untaxed, wouldn’t Oregon want to get in on that action? Wouldn’t the collegiate athletes at Oregon, Oregon State, Oregon Technical Institute and many other school appreciate having some new gear or renovated facilities or more opportunities for female students to get involved in sports? It certainly seems like state lawmakers are hurting their chances to make a major improvement in the lives of their universities’ athletics programs by not tapping into this rapidly growing subset of the sports gambling market.

Furthermore, the major professional sports leagues have been trying since at least the beginning of 2018 to extract a royalty on the use of their “intellectual property” (that would be the games and athletes participating in their sports) under the guise of so called “integrity fees” – what is to stop the Pac-12 and other Power Five conferences from demanding something similar? If all the Pac-12 schools from Washington down to Arizona generated between $5 billion and $10 billion in handle, then the conference could try to work a similar deal as the pro leagues’ 1 percent of handle for “integrity fee” and still come away with a cool $50 million or $100 million to divvy up between all the universities. That sounds like a pretty good incentive to make something happen on the sports betting legalization front just by itself, but that does not even begin to address the other ways that sports wagering could boost the Pac-12 schools in Oregon.

A recent Nielsen Poll showed a substantial percentage of all avid sports fans were also regular sports bettors. The actual number escapes us at this time but it was in the high 40s in terms of the percent, but the gist is this: if a person tunes into a sports broadcast with any kind of regularity then the chances are good that they can be counted on to place a wager on sports at least some of the time. The same poll showed that nearly 20 percent of people that watch sports broadcasts regularly (and watch the game all the way through) are only doing so for the purpose of betting on that sporting event or to gain information needed to place a bet, or for some reason related to betting on sports.

Frankly, the implications of those polling results are less revelatory than they are edifying. It is commonly held knowledge that one of the primary reasons that anyone would want to watch a sporting event is so that you could have a chance to win some extra money here or there for no extra work. Why would you no want to – provided the chance to do it legally was available to you in some kind of convenient format? That’s what the legal offshore sportsbook sites like Bovada and 5Dimes have done for years, and – NEWSFLASH – it is working for them just fine (the overwhelming majority of the money wagered on sports by American bettors is spent at sites like those).

What makes this line of reasoning an even more compelling argument is the fact that, unlike in the case of college basketball, the Power Five football conferences control their own sport. It is widely accepted that the biggest time of the year for hoops betting is the March Madness Men’s College Basketball Championship, and it is 100 percent the show of the NCAA. College football is a different story, and not only do the biggest and most prominent conferences drive the action, they get together to put on the national championship playoffs (and before that, of course, a champion had to be declared based on a matchup determined by coaches and sportswriter polls).

That means that the conferences, of which the Pac-12 is by no means the least, are really in the driver’s seat when it comes to establishing what they would like to get out of a legalized sports betting market in places like Oregon, Washington, Arizona, Colorado, California, and so on.

If Oregon and other states with Pac-12 teams moved swiftly to legalize sports betting, and even if they did not go all-in on the rent-seeking route like the marginally scummier professional sports leagues are doing in states all over the country, they could cash in on this massive viewer base. That is just one facet of the argument to be made in favor of sports betting regulation too. Don’t forget the possibilities for sponsorship, potentially lucrative advertising deals, media exclusivity contracts, and even, maybe, extra-large donations from regular (extra wealthy) boosters who piled up some huge winning tickets after they picked the winners successfully in a few legal bets.

Oregon may have been limited to its Sports Action lottery product back in the day because that was all the Beaver State had legally approved and codified at the time PASPA became the law of the land. That is not the case anymore now that PASPA is well and truly dead and buried. Now is not the time for Oregon’s lawmakers to waste time giving the go-ahead to a game that lets players bet on virtual (and probably rigged) simulated football matchups between fictitious teams and fake players.

What the people of Oregon want, and what the schools, teams and players in Oregon need is legal sports betting in Oregon, and sooner would be much better than later. If neighboring states pull this off before the Beaver State can, then it is hard to see how that can be considered a good move for anybody involved.

The post Oregon’s Pac-12 Universities Could Win Big If The State Legalized Sports Betting first appeared on SportsBettingInOregon.com.

Critics Of A Possible Return To Sports Betting In Oregon

Dillon Appleman — Thu, 31 May 2018 15:29:00 +0000

Oregon has a rather unique part to play in the drama unfolding seemingly by the day in the wake of the Supreme Court’s recent decision to overturn the longstanding Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act.

That’s because, unlike 46 states all over the country, Oregon was still legally able to offer some form of sports betting despite the near blanket ban imposed after the 1992 passage of the onerous, overreaching PASPA. Though the law and its prohibitions on regulated sportsbooks sanctioned by individual state governments was largely rendered moot within a few years after it took effect thanks to the en masse worldwide adoption of the internet – and legal online sports betting sites based in foreign countries with it - starting in the middle of the ‘90s is immaterial. Similarly, it does not matter much for the purposes of our discussion that the law was always unconstitutional right from the start, and that, finally, after just more than 25 years on the books, the SCOTUS decided to acknowledge PASPA’s breach of the 10th Amendment concept of States’ Rights.

What matters is that PASPA was the law of the land for 25 years and that, during that whole time, Oregon – despite being one of just four states to be grandfathered in with any kind of capacity to offer sports bets while the majority of other states could not do so legally – did not do much. Nevertheless, it is true that one of the main stipulations of PASPA was that only the states that had some manner of formalized sports betting law at the time of its passage could continue to offer action on sports to residents and visitors, and, even then, only up to the point that the laws passed prior to 1992 had established. That is to say that Oregon’s state legislators could not have passed any expansion of gambling beyond what it already had “on hand,” so to say, even if they had wanted to, but it is equally true to say that they did not want to expand their sports betting market either.

So, for some 15 years Oregonians looking to wager on sports had to make due with an NFL-only lottery (called, somewhat weakly, Sports Action) if they wanted to stick to a sports betting option sanctioned by the Beaver State, and many – it must be said – did not want to stick to this very limited option. There is really no way to know for sure, but it certainly seems as though there would have to be hundreds of thousands if not millions of Pacific Northwest residents that have placed wagers at legal offshore sportsbook websites and probably continue to do so.

But now that PASPA has been declared unconstitutional (at last), the possibility at least exists that real sports betting could make a return to Oregon, and not just in the form of an expanded sports lottery covering a variety of different sports, leagues and events, but actual honest to goodness sportsbooks this time.

And despite the many possibilities for increased state revenues in a cash-strapped local economy, despite the windfall sports betting could be for the state’s admittedly thriving tribal casino industry, and despite the dependence of upon lottery revenues by the state’s university system, still there are critics. These critical individuals (though we should give no consideration of them as being critical thinkers in the most exact sense) are already, not even two weeks after PASPA’s defeat in the Supreme Court, harping on all the usual tropes that go along with opposition to sports betting. They say there could be rampant point-shaving by athletes, intentionally botched calls by officials, corruption by administrators and coaches, and so on, but above it all rises the wail of “it could violate the integrity of the completion.”

These confounding types may think they have all the answers, but the facts remain that the sports lottery – which was allowed to lapse in 2007 and was never replaced – was a huge contributor to the state’s annual income, as the conventional lotto remains to this day, even a decade removed in time. Even if full-on sports betting were not to be implemented in Oregon in the wake of the PASPA repeal, and only sports lotteries made a return, it has been estimated (by reputable economics research and consultation firms such as ECONorthwest) that the Beaver State could pull in at least $50 million in net revenues.

The haul would be even greater, of course, if the state’s tribal casinos could start employing some bookies to go along with their slots, poker rooms, table games and so on, and revenues would probably quadruple if Oregon could take the national lead in online and mobile sports betting. That is something that no other state in the country except Pennsylvania is taking very seriously at the moment, for reasons that, frankly, baffle serious sports bettors who do most all of their wagering using mobile apps or computers with an internet connection.

Certainly the state institutions of higher learning, just to name but one of many examples, would welcome any new infusion of revenues from an expanded lottery, as 1 percent of the money taken in by the state lotto is supposed to be allocated for their use and often makes up a substantial proportion of each school’s annual budget. Whether or not they will get what they are owed, or even if they will get more than what they are expected, is doubtful so long as Oregon’s lawmakers do not embrace the opportunity that their state has had for years.

Other states – indeed most states – that were even more hard-pressed for cash had to do without the option to offer any kind of sports betting to their residents and visitors. Oregon’s policymakers should let that thought percolate for a while before they decide to once again not take the chance they’ve been given to enact sports betting in Oregon.

Here’s the real kicker: if Oregon decides not to start rolling out a sports betting product while other nearby states – namely California – do opt in for their slice of the sports wagering pie, then it will only be the politicians and the public coffer that suffer, not individual bettors. For them the option to use a legal offshore sportsbook site will always be available, and if Oregon’s legislators listen to the naysayers too much, then access to a market valued at somewhere between $150 billion and $250 billion could be well and truly off the table for good this time.

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Oregon State Lottery Spokesman Says State Could Start Offering New Sports Betting Options Soon

Sierra Kennedy — Thu, 31 May 2018 15:27:00 +0000

Some rustlings of the planned release of a new option for sports betting in Oregon have started to make their way out of the Beaver State in the last few days.

Oregon Lottery spokesman Chuck Baumann told local media that the state-sanctioned lotto had already directed its staff to develop a new “virtual sports betting game” well in advance of the momentous May 14 decision by the US Supreme Court to overturn the Professional and Amateur Sports Betting Act of 1992 (PASPA). Even though Oregon was one of four states that was allowed to offer some form of sports wagering to residents and visitors (Nevada was really the only one of the four to have a full sports betting menu, however), the state’s popular Sports Action NFL lottery has not been offered since 2007. That makes Baumann’s reveal of an entirely new sports betting option – even if it is a virtual one, featuring fake teams and athletes playing a randomized game – something to take note of, as it at least serves as an indication that Oregon is interested in pursuing a return for sports betting more generally.

Baumann told local reporters that the state lotto would not be moving with undue speed, but instead would take a measured approach and wait for a cue from lawmakers before proceeding with a formal launch of the new product. That said, it is entirely possible that the virtual football game, in which players try to predict what will happen next in a computer-generated game between fictitious squads on a digital gridiron, could start appearing at video Keno terminals and other gaming kiosks around the state “soon.” However, all the excitement – or what will have to pass for it in this case – will necessarily be couched in the admission that there are as yet not any more plans for further expansion into the sports betting marketplace.

“[The Oregon Lottery] wouldn’t move on anything until we had conversation with our stakeholders at the Capitol," Baumann told the Statesman Journal in an interview from last week. "We are not in any hurry to offer up other sports games. The key thing is offering games people want to play.”

Despite the seeming reluctance on the part of the Oregon Lottery to take too big of a step forward now that PASPA is gone for good, there are advocated for expanded sports betting in the Beaver State. The primary source of the interest is coming from the state’s tribal casino operators, which, naturally, want both a seat at the table when it comes to making decisions affecting what could be a tremendous windfall of new income and a slice of the pie when a deal is sealed. For now though, the tribes are holding steady, waiting, like the state lottery, on what the folks at the statehouse have to say regarding the PASPA repeal and what it could mean for the future of sports betting in Oregon.

“We're certainly looking into what this means for Oregon," said Grand Ronde tribal member and lobbyist.

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