Top stories around our network this week
Over the past few hours, we polled a select number of readers on which of the following they deemed the most significant news affecting the sports betting industry in this first full week of September:
- The return of the NFL season.
- Nancy Pelosi’s announcement that she will run for reelection to Congress, even though she is among just dozens of Americans older than Joe Biden.
To a person, our readers chose No. 1. Maybe if Pelosi could persuade Californians to legalize sports betting, it would be different. But that might not happen in her lifetime — or anyone’s.
So once more the NFL wins, as it always does. It got a great story line out of Thursday night’s season opener, with the downtrodden-since-forever Detroit Lions upsetting the Super Bowl champion Kansas City Chiefs and moving up on all kinds of postseason odds boards. Another 15 games are to be played by Monday, and another 256 by Jan. 7, and has already been on top of wide-ranging angles relevant to sports bettors and sportsbook operators.
Those include the intensified education about gambling that the NFL has delivered to its personnel, the increased popularity of live betting among the public, and industry veteran Richard Schuetz’s cautions to bettors about how to avoid some serious pitfalls during football season. We’ve had articles about a special DraftKings season-long points bet and the overlay possibilities for Las Vegas-based Circa’s legendary season contests.