Sports betting is off and running at Borgata, having been inaugurated by Julius “Dr. J” Erving, who put down $5 on the Philadelphia Eagles to win a second straight Super Bowl. “I got a chance to look at the board 
and saw that the [Philadelphia] Sixers and the Eagles are both picked in the top 5, but I work for the Sixers so it might have been a rules violation to bet on that. So I chose the Eagles,” Dr. J told reporters. He also pooh-poohed the notion of sports betting as a corrupting influence: “Guys make too much money to be enticed by a bookie or someone to shave points or anything like that. You’re making $12 million a year, what’s another $50 going to do to jeopardize your career for that? I don’t see it being a problem.”
“Dozens” of punters were lined up outside the Borgata sports book, waiting for follow in Erving’s footsteps, including Tom Barton, who’d placed one of the first non-parlay bets in Delaware. “I bet $1,000 on the Yankees. I’m not going to do the same bet, it’ll be a football play,” said Barton, sounding like someone who’d been let down by the Bronx Bombers.
A person with a rather low threshold of excitement added, “I’d say it’s the biggest day for Jersey casinos probably since the [sic] Revel opened.” Oh, better than that, don’t you think? State Senate President Stephen Sweeney (D) was only metaphorically wagering, saying that legal 
sports betting would cause a resurgence at the state’s horse tracks. While we think Monmouth Park will see a near-term bump in business, things will probably go back to normal once the casinos (besides Borgata) come on line.
The debut of Garden State sports betting happened to coincide with the East Coast Gaming Conference. Attendees were of the opinion that the smart phone will be the primary propellant of sports wagering. More’s the pity that New Jersey has put a one-month moratorium on mobile wagering. Sportradar US Vice President Neale Deeley said, “The growth of in-play [prop bets] has been a huge driver.”
* Nine years passes in the blink of an eye in Macao. It’s been that long since Lawrence Ho opened City of Dreams. Now he’s brightening it up with Morpheus (conducive of a peaceful night’s sleep?), designed by 
the late Zaha Hadid. After saying that the opening of Morpheus was an effort to keep up with the Joneses, Ho told reporters, “Morpheus is truly an architectural icon, not just for Macao, for Asia. The reason behind it is, we wanted to send a love letter to China and Macao as well, given all of the support and all the great business and relationships we’ve had over the years.” With its architectural exoskeleton, Morpheus will not only stand out from all other Macanese hotels but from those around the world. “Five times more steel than in the Eiffel Tower,” says Ho, who says the ‘8’ in Morpheus’ design is a happy accident. He’s a polished businessman who gets things done and at a high level. How do we lure him to Sin City?
