Guess what? Major leagues’ opposition to sports betting has melted overnight and now they’re into it for as much money as they can get. Bookmaker William Hill reports being “inundated” with sponsorship 
requests. Hill is a logical candidate for this, since it is expanding the Monmouth Park sports book, site of New Jersey’s first legal bet. While some issues between casinos and sports teams remain unresolved, William Hill CEO Joe Asher says that “the leagues and the teams are interested in doing commercial deals.” What a surprise. Not. Expect William Hill billboards to start decorating outfield walls and tiers of stadiums across this great land. As for the athletes themselves, some are lobbying for protection from shakedowns by bettors who might want them to throw a game. According to The Associated Press, “Among the players’ concerns are fears that proposition bets on actions during a game could taint the product on the field, leading fans to question whether the plays they see are legitimate.”
Elaborated MLB players union spokesman Chris Dahl, “Players are concerned the introduction of widespread sports betting has the potential to fundamentally change the unique relationship — the bond — between players and fans. They wonder if the human elements of the game that so often create emotional highs and lows will come to be viewed through the lens of a gambler’s cynicism.” Funny, but we didn’t hear similar sentiments about the integrity of the game during the years when steroid use ran rampant.
For the record, sports betting’s launch at Monmouth Park went off as planned, with Gov. Phil Murphy (D) wagering the Germany will win the World Cup. (He and Francophile Raymond Lesniak will have much to discuss.) If this seems like a cathartic moment in gaming history, it is probably because it has been tantalizingly delayed for nine years. Garden State citizen John Mahoney‘s reaction to the newly legal gambling would be music to Jersey politicians’ ears: “I usually go out [to Las Vegas] at the start of the [football] season or sometime over the summer to put in a couple of futures for the year. It’ll definitely help not having to fly out to Vegas to put down action like this. It’s going to be great for the state, and great for the track especially.”
Added Monmouth Park CEO Dennis Drazin, “We’ve been fighting this fight for more than six years in the courts and now that this day has arrived, and judging by the response from the fans who turned out for this, it’s exciting. Clearly, it’s something the people of New Jersey have been waiting for.”
Before we leave the Garden State, let it be noted that regulators were sufficiently sympathetic to Ocean Resort to grant it a special licensing hearing, lest the June 28 opening have to be postponed. If needed, a follow-up hearing will be held the following morning. Building inspections and operations tests also remain to be performed, in the great casino-industry tradition of leaving the most important things until the last possible minute.
* More bad news for Encore Boston Harbor: It’s being sued for an alleged kickback. Former landowner Anthony Gattineri asserts that Wynn Resorts reversed field on an under-the-table deal to pay him $18 million 
above and beyond the purchase price for his acreage. It sounds as sleazy as all get-out but doesn’t make Gattinieri look like any sort of knight in shining armor either. The Massachusetts Gaming Commission should certainly sit up and take notice of these accusations of fraud and breach of contract. Wynn spokesman Greg John was sanguine, calling Gattinieri’s suit “an attempt to now extract an additional multi-million-dollar payment from our company beyond what was negotiated and accepted by Mr. Gattineri 
and his partners in the Everett land transaction. Mr. Gattineri’s claim that a publicly-traded company in a highly-regulated industry would execute a $20 million transaction on a handshake deal, without any documentation or paperwork, is implausible and will be vigorously defended by Wynn.We have notified the Massachusetts Gaming Commission of the claim.”
The suit stems from a bit of smart business by Steve Wynn, who took advantage of the indictment, trial (and acquittal) of Gattineri and associates Charles Lightbody and Dustin DeNunzio to bump the price of 
their land from $75 million to $35 million. (Tainted goods, you know.) Gattinieri accuses Encore Boston Harbor President Robert DeSalvio of meeting him in San Diego to bribe him into signing a certificate that Gattinieri wasn’t fronting for hidden ownership, with the inducement of an $18.6 million share of the forfeited $40 million. The agreement was purely verbal, Gattinieri says, because DeSalvio told him Wynn Resorts was “more regulated than the nuclear power industry” and “Wynn had many ways in which it could make Mr. Gattineri whole through other projects and developments.” This news must be making Mohegan Sun‘s day, because the latter is suing Massachusetts to have Wynn stripped of its license, possibly forcing the company to sell Mohegan Sun the $2.4 billion project at a steep discount. Some would call that irony.
