New Jersey: Play ball!; Brothels on the defensive in Nevada

Major League Baseball, which has a long and tortured history with gambling, is urging states other than Nevada not to copy the Silver State’s regulatory system when it comes to sports betting, Why? Nevada sports books are not required to share information with the big leagues. “We should adopt regulations that fit 2018,” said Bryan Seeley, a former federal prosecutor who now works for MLB. “Sophisticated manipulation is going to cross state lines and people are likely to place bets in different states, particularly if they know that no one is aggregating data across states and looking at it.” If not Nevada, then where? Seeley points to Australia: “there is the most cooperation and coordination between sports leagues, the regulator and bookmakers.”

Seeley is still reeling from the tongue lashing he got from New Jersey state Sen. Ralph Caputo (D) when he dared to raise the subject of “integrity fees.” So far, MLB is playing catch-up. Delaware has already started taking sports bets and New Jersey’s legislation — newly inked by Gov. Phil Murphy (D) — requires neither data nor revenue sharing. Of the Garden State bill, Murphy said it will “attract new business and new fans, boosting their own long-term financial prospects.”

“This is one of those moments when you’re pleased you serve as an elected official. This is in an instance where you provide something that’s good for the public, that’s good for the citizens, that cleans up an industry that needs to be changed, and hopefully helps New Jersey’s economy,” added Caputo. Betting can’t begin until Thursday because the New Jersey Racing Commission has to meet tomorrow to review emergency regulations. Monmouth Park is expecting Murphy and predecessor Chris Christie to be among those placing the first wagers. Longtime sports-betting champion Raymond Lesniak also plans on being there so he can lay down a World Cup bet in favor of France. Only high-school sports, e-sports, intrastate college games and New Jersey collegiate teams playing anywhere are off-limits. Depending on how it fares in other states, we will see whether the ban on e-sports betting was well-advised or not. As for sports betting in general, some are saying the District of Columbia should get into the game. The Reason Foundation‘s Guy Bentley writes that D.C. “would have an even better regime in place were it not for Congress’s continuing desire to put its views ahead of the city’s residents.

So far the only Atlantic City casino that says it will be ready to take the field by the start of NFL season is the Golden Nugget. That’s ironic because the Lege almost redlined the Nugget out of sports betting altogether, before cooler heads prevailed. For most of the Boardwalk casinos, sports betting will help offset competition from two new casinos. But for Monmouth Park the stakes are higher. “This means our whole future,” said owner Dennis Drazin.

* Nevada comes more and more to seem like one of the last islets of individual freedom as the rest of the United States takes on a sinister resemblance to Gilead in The Handmaid’s Tale (just try getting an abortion in Iowa or Ohio). But even that is threatened as two Silver State counties are weighing ballot measures that would outlaw the brothels that operate therein. Dennis Hof, who would lose six bordellos should the initiatives pass, says, “It’s awful that people would come in and try to change that [libertarian] culture, that they want to inflict their moral values on the rest of us.”

Hof is not taking this lying down. He’s running against James Oscarson (R) for the latter’s seat in the state Assembly. But the self-styled “Trump of Pahrump” doesn’t sit well with constituent Karen Cohen, who rages that Hof’s industry is “an embarrassment that we are one of the very few spots in the very United States that tolerates legal prostitution.” Hof isn’t a role model by any means: He’s been accused of sexual assault by former employees. However, Oscarson is tied to the puritanical anti-Hof crusade, which is being run out of the offices of law partner Lt. Gov. Mark Hutchinson (R). He wants to make Nevada more like the rest of the U.S. — but is that a good thing?