Question of the Day - 25 January 2024

[Editor's Note: This answer is written by veteran sports bettor and gambling author Blair Rodman.]

I think there are a lot of parallels between the growth of the legal sports betting industry and the proliferation of legal poker tournaments in the U.S.

In 2001, under the impetus of Matt Savage, Linda Johnson, and a few others, the poker-tournament-director’s association, or TDA, was formed. The TDA’s most important function was to put together a standardized rule book for poker tournaments. Understanding that their initial product wasn’t perfect and that unusual situations constantly arise that aren't covered by the existing book, tournament directors from all over meet annually to revise and update the rules.

The postponement of the recent Buffalo/Pittsburgh NFL wild-card playoff game illuminated the need for the leaders of the sports betting industry to follow the TDA’s lead and work together to establish a standard rule book for sports betting. When the postponement was announced, it sent bettors scrambling to find the rules at their respective sports books. Personally, like your friend, I had bets, based on the weather forecast, at four different books. Two of them canceled my bets; at the two others, I had action.

Another memorable rule event arose in the 2002-23 NFL season when Buffalo Bills safety Demar Hamlin had a cardiac event on the field in a game against the Cincinnati Bengals. The game was halted, with no official result, and not rescheduled. This had an effect on several betting options, including regular-season wins for both teams. Again, individual sports books handled it differently, to the dismay of some bettors and the delight of others.  

It’s not just in regard to unexpected events where rules differ among books. Tennis is notable, where the rules on what constitutes an official match result vary widely. 

COVID caused some books to modify rules to allow for unexpected cancellations, or player absences, and while some books changed them back, others didn’t. For example, in baseball, some books no longer offer the historically standard “listed-pitchers” option and bets have action regardless of pitching changes. Also, some books did away with the rule in which bets on the full game are official after 5 innings, now requiring 8.5-9 innings (depending on if the home team is winning after 8.5) to be official.

There are many other rule discrepancies among books, both in the U.S. and offshore. The best advice to bettors now is to know the rules of the particular book or books where you bet. This is good advice, but it shouldn’t be necessary.

When sports betting was limited in the U.S. to Nevada and illegal bookies and the leagues did their best to downplay sports gambling, rules issues, while still a problem, weren’t in the public spotlight. Now the leagues have seen dollar signs and embraced betting on their sports, some even partnering with legal bookies.

As well as spending time on figuring out how to extract the most money from bettors, the leagues and sports books should put some effort into making sports betting as fair as possible for customers. A standard rule book would be a great step in that direction. This should be a joint effort between U.S. books and major offshores, which derive a large part of their business from U.S. customers and would likely be agreeable in helping create the book.  

I’ve referred to the sports betting industry as “nascent” for several years, as it has struggled to find its footing in the U.S. But it’s about to turn six years old and it’s time it grew up. A good way to start would be to put together a standard rule book.