SportsHandle: That was the week that was in US sports betting

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SportsHandle and friends deliver another round-up of the week’s big developments in US sports betting.

Sportsbooks Are Hell-Bent On Pushing Parlay Betting 

“These same game parlays are insane! How much longer is FanDuel gonna keep it around?” asks “Jerry” on Twitter, in a comment featured in a commercial aired during a New York Knicks broadcast on Wednesday night.  The answer, Jerry, is somewhere between a “very long time” and “forever.”

If you’re unfamiliar, this brand of parlays allows bettors to string together two, eight, or perhaps 15 events from a single game (see example below), all of which must succeed for the bet to win. Some of these events, such as which player will score the first touchdown, are exceedingly unpredictable. They can be fun, especially during standalone prime time games. And it is exhilarating to turn a crisp digital $10 into $662, or $3 into $3,000. But growing sportsbook glamorization and encouragement of it has grown from full bloom to too much.

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Trump Plaza Implosion Complete, Marks Official End Of An Era

Former President Donald Trump has been gone from Atlantic City for a number of years, but the shell of one of his former casinos lived on — until Wednesday morning, when a much-ballyhooed implosion of shuttered Trump Plaza took place (a mere seven minutes after the scheduled 9 a.m. start).

And with that, a major reminder of Trump’s legacy in a city that helped him gain his fame beginning in the 1980s is gone.

Trump didn’t build the first Atlantic City casino — that would be Resorts, which opened in 1978 — but his Boardwalk property (which opened as “Harrah’s at Trump Plaza” before the name quickly was shortened) helped raise the status of the city to a new level.

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A Presidents Day Look At Who The Betting Markets Say Will Win In 2024

Presidents Day, which this year falls four days after George Washington’s birthday and three days after Abraham Lincoln’s, is a holiday that looks back at America’s presidential past. Here at US Bets, however, we’re going to spend this day looking ahead to America’s presidential future.

The 2020 election is over — finally. We suspect even those people who were continuing to bet on Donald Trump deep into December and January have stopped throwing their money away at this point.

But before we know it, midterm elections will be here, and not long after that, we’ll be talking about the Republican primaries and, with a by-then-octogenarian in the nation’s highest office, maybe Democratic primaries too.

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Single-Event Sports Betting Bill In Canada Advances To Justice Committee

Although momentum for bringing single-event sports betting to Canada hit a snag late last year, renewed efforts for legalizing the activity have picked up steam this week.

On Wednesday, Parliament members passed C-218 303-15, advancing the private-member bill authored by Conservative Kevin Waugh to the House of Commons’ Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights. The bill received wide bipartisan support, as a separate government-sponsored bill appears set for another reading in the Canadian Parliament’s lower chamber, perhaps as early as Friday.

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Illinois Posts $491.7 Million Sports Betting Handle For December

Despite lacking a retail sports betting presence, Illinois recorded a high in handle for the seventh straight month as the state’s gaming board reported more than $491.7 million wagered on events in December 2020.

The state’s seven casinos that offer sports betting plus Hawthorne Race Course — which also has retail wagering available — were closed throughout December due to the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. That shifted action to the five mobile operators across Illinois, and the result was a 9.4% increase in traditional handle from November’s mark of more than $449 million.

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FanDuel Jumps Out To Early Lead In MI Sportsbook Wars, With DraftKings And Barstool Right Behind

FanDuel’s online sportsbook has taken the first round in the battle for supremacy in Michigan, as the first batch of numbers were released Wednesday morning by the Michigan Gaming Control Board (MGCB).

For the first 10 days, a span that runs from the launch date of Jan. 22 through Jan. 31 — and as such, does not include the Super Bowl — FanDuel (partnered with the MotorCity Casino) took in $32,602,738 in handle, which accounted for nearly 28% of the state’s total handle, which was just north of $115 million.

Perhaps the more interesting battle took place in the silver and bronze category, with DraftKings (and its partner Bay Mills Indian Community) taking in $28,190,633 in wagers, narrowly edging out Barstool (and its partner, Greektown Casino) with $27,482,237.

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