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Once again, the three legal sportsbooks in Delaware that take wagers on NFL games all season long will be shut out for the Super Bowl. (Bet on hundreds of Super Bowl props here at Bookmaker.eu, serving the sports bettor since 1985. LIVE WAGERING on every play available).
That's because state law in Delaware permits only one kind of sports betting: three-team (or more) parlays on the NFL using game pointspreads.
In other words, no college football, no other sports, no single-game bets, no totals betting and no money lines.
Since there are only two games left in the NFL season--next week's Pro Bowl and the following week's Super Bowl--there won't be any pure wagering on either event at Delaware's three sportsbooks.
The books, all located at race tracks in the state, are at Delaware Park in Wilmington, Dover Downs in Dover and Harrington Raceway in Harrington.
Legal NFL wagering in the state begain in 2009.
Just because the books won't be offering Super Bowl wagering doesn't mean they didn't try.
A sportsbook employee at Delaware Park told Gambling911.com earlier today: "We couldn't offer Super Bowl betting last year either. We tried to come up with a way around the law, but the State wouldn't allow us to do it."
One proposed method, the employee said, was to offer a betting line on the first half of the Super Bowl, another betting line on the second half of the Super Bowl and a third betting line for the whole game.
That way, the employee said, three separate wagers would be offered and the requisite three-team parlay could be made.
"But the State said no," the employee said. "They said that would be equivalent to making a single-game wager, which isn't allowed."
Yes, if one team in the Super Bowl covered the spread for both halves, it would also automatically cover the spread for the game, and that could be construed in some minds as really only one wager.
But it's also quite possible that each team could cover the pointspread for one of the halves, with one of them then covering for the whole game.
"It doesn't matter," the sportsbook employee said. "They said we couldn't do it."
Another scheme that was floated, the employee said, was to allow bettors to wager on the Super Bowl and then on two games from the NEXT season, to make the required three-teamer.
"But that was ultimately rejected too because everyone would have to wait seven months to find out if they had won their parlay," the employee said.
There was betting in Delaware yesterday on the NFC and AFC championship games, however, as well as quasi-betting on the Super Bowl.
"For their three-team parlays, bettors could wager on the NFC and AFC title games and then on either the Pro Bowl or the Super Bowl," the employee said. "Or they could wager on one conference championship game and the Pro Bowl and the Super Bowl."
But how did the sportsbook set a line on the Super Bowl, when it didn't yet know what teams would be in the Super Bowl?
"We made a generic Super Bowl line, with the AFC favored by one point over the NFC," the employee said.
By Tom Somach
Gambling911.com Staff Writer
tomsomach@yahoo.com
