Edgar "Mouse" Hohl's Hickory-Dickory-Dock #5
Throw On-Line Sports Betting to the Lions
The infamous Sportsbet.com billboard on the Las Vegas Strip without Real Cash.
Throw On-Line Sports Betting to the Lions
SportsBet.com, to tout its website, tantalized the public by putting $100,000 in $1 bills on a Las Vegas Strip billboard last week. They then posted odds and took wagers on the proposition that the money would be stolen. It was a bad bet.
The company showed how cheap it is. In Las Vegas, $100,000 is chump change. Benny Binion put a $1 million dollars on display in the Horseshoe when gasoline was 50-cents a gallon and a new Ford cost $600.
What's more, making theft of the money a proposition bet is sleazy and cynical. The odds that desperation and greed would win out and the money would be stolen were 6-to-1. They should've been higher.
Although the money was to remain on the billboard until October, four risk-takers went for it soon after the money was put up. In Las Vegas, only the "pigeons" were surprised.
Maybe it should read, "Real Guard
When the billboard security guard left at 3 AM for a break (?), thieves climbed the billboard and tried to steal the money. Railbirds watching the action from the street called police, but the four gamblers jumped into a car and sped away before they arrived.
The Police recovered $96,300. A spokesman said the company will not press charges because most of the money was recovered.
Some contend that the whole $100,000 billboard event was a stunt designed to generate millions of dollars worth of publicity. If it was supposed to attract attention, it certainly did. But stunt or not, it was stupid.
Along with the War on Drugs, the War in Afghanistan, the War in Iraq, and the War on Terrorism, the U.S. Government has most recently declared a War on Internet Gambling and its first target is sports betting.
Any sports book that doesn't take care of money better than that shouldn't be in the business. And, apparently SportsBet.com won't be very long. While this billboard farce was unfolding, Peter Dicks, company chairman, was arrested at New York's Kennedy International Airport following his arrival from England.
It seems the Chairman is wanted in Louisiana for Internet gambling, a felony. Now, company officials want to take their chips off the table and have asked that trading of its stock be suspended.
Sports have a long history as a source of crime and corruption, from the 1919 World Series fix to the current concerns over steroids and doping. The original 1961 Wire Act prohibiting betting over phone lines (Internet later included) was specifically aimed at sports betting.
Republicans and the uptight Christian Right are always looking for a fight. They have a Crusader Complex, a sense of mission. If a sacrifice is necessary to appease them, throw sports betting to the lions.
Internet Poker, on the other hand, does not deserve the same fate. Poker is pure free enterprise capitalism. It is each individual risking his/her investment through wit and wisdom, luck and pluck to realize a profit. If playing Poker online is illegal, it's time to shut down the Stock Exchange.