In spite of high hold percentages and no brick-and-mortar venues, Tennessee sports books came out of the blocks at a blinding pace. November handle was $131.5 million, the most for any first month in any state, ever. (Indiana debuted at $35 million, the previous record, and it took New Jersey four months to top $130 million.) Revenue was $13 million, of which $2.5 million flows into state coffers. In explaining the phenomenon, PlayUSA analyst Dustin Gouker said that “The best-ever launch for online sports betting is perhaps a surprise to some, but Tennessee also debuted with enormously favorable circumstances, many of which came by design. First, it debuted in the heart of the NFL and college football seasons in a region that is particularly football crazy.”
DraftKings, FanDuel, BetMGM and local Action 24/7 were the immediate beneficiaries of the betting surge. The New Year brings the entry of William Hill, WynnBet and BetAmerica but they’ll have a lot of catching up to do and none except William Hill rivals the brand equity of three of the four first movers. (It seems Barstool Sports is missing an opportunity here.) Concluded Gouker, “The next question is when and if Tennessee will challenge Colorado and Indiana in terms of overall market size. It appears sooner than anyone expected.”
Tip stealing is never OK, attempting to do this when the restaurant business is teetering because of the pandemic is just disgusting. Speaking of disgusting, blowing up months of negotiations on stimulus then jetting off to your private club to spend Christmas when tens of millions of people suffer through a public health disaster that you ignored and lied about is just putrid. Obviously he is doing this because not enough Republicans are willing to destroy our Republic and help him steal the election he lost. His Administration promised repeatedly that we would vaccinate 20 million Americans by January 1st, so far we have injected only one million, and its the 24th… Stay safe, Merry Christmas…
The restaurants and their employees are hurting bad, and we need to take the boot of government gone wild off their neck. I am so glad the President told Congress to give him a better covid relief bill than this meager $600/person stimulus next to the $billions of pork projects the Democrats included in this bill. The President works all the time for us, no matter where he is. We should all rejoice that his personal leadership has given us now two vaccines, with more coming, in such a record short time to begin vaccinating before the end of the year. Many of the American people were so brain-washed by the media that they showed their appreciation by voting against him. It is amazing what he got done with all the terrible things the Democrats and the media did to try and stop every move he made and to criticize every good think he did. God bless this man.
It’s the President’s own Department Of Labor this is implementing the tip stealing in restaurants, hopefully the new Biden Administration will quickly nip that in the bud, they have a lot of work to do… Combining the Covid relief bill with the government spending bill is only a thing because Mitch McConnell ignored for six months the relief bill that the Democrats in the House passed that was way more generous than the $600 compromise. Get it done Mr. President, playing golf everyday then tweeting about it from the clubhouse of your private club does nothing for millions of Americans whose unemployment benefits expire today, not to mention the three thousand who die each day from Covid…
In early summer Pelosi and the House Democrats passed not a Covid relief bill, but a $3+ Trillion bill that was full of pork, with bailouts to blue states for years of Democrat mismangement, and many other items totally urelated to Covid relief. The Senate correctly ignored it. The ensued months of negotiation between the Trump Administration, the Senate and Nancy Pelosi. Countless compromises were offered by the Administration, but Pelosi would not budge from her pork bill, only a small cut in length of time. She made it clear after the election that it was only then that she would consider a more realistic bill. The current bill is horrible. A meager $600 per person and full of non Covid pork. President Trump should hold out for a more realistic bill with more money for the American people and NO PORK!