LAS VEGAS — For two months, Patrick Everson had been lying in wait for the U.S. Supreme Court’s Murphy v. NCAA decision.
SCOTUS had heard oral arguments in October 2017. Industry experts told Everson they believed Murphy would win, letting states legalize sports wagering.
Everson provided thorough reports at
Covers.com. From March 2018, he tracked -SCOTUS decision releases, at 10 a.m. D.C. time, from its own website.
A few minutes before 7 a.m. in Vegas, on Mondays, he’d tap into it. There were other release days during the week, but those Mondays were consistent. For weeks, nothing. He’d hit refresh. Nothing.
Toward the end of April, he envisioned how the devilish dominos might drop. More than six months earlier, he and wife Annette, a Chicago native from Oak Lawn, had arranged their 25th wedding anniversary in style, on Oahu.
Neither had ever left the mainland. They had raised two children. They’d depart on Sunday, May 13, for the Turtle Bay Resort on the North Shore.
That night, at Turtle Bay, he set the alarm for 3:45 a.m., Monday the 14th. He told -Annette, Watch the news break in mere hours. He awoke, ignited the computer and, at two minutes past four, 10:02 in D.C. . . .
“I hit ‘refresh’ on the SCOTUS page,’’ Everson says, ‘‘and sure as hell, there it is. ‘The Supreme Court overturns PASPA.’ Good dream. Bad timing.”
The 26-year-old Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act — PASPA, or the Brady Bill — had essentially been extinguished by a 7-2 vote favoring Murphy.
“It isn’t how my wife planned to spend our first full day in paradise,” he says.
HAIL, JERSEY!
A Colorado native and University of Colorado graduate who’d worked in journalism since 1991, Everson tapped sources, hustled on two stories and finished by 8 a.m.
The Eversons enjoyed their first full day in Hawaii as if nothing had happened.
Plenty had occurred, however. A shadowy business was now in the daylight glare. With Ohio and Massachusetts on board this month, the roster of legal U.S. jurisdictions is 34.
From May 2018 through 2021, national sports betting did more than $97 billion in business, or handle, according to US Bets. In the 2022 calendar year, that handle was more than $80 billion.
In revenue, sports wagering might eclipse General Motors by 2030.
“I knew it was important, but I’d be lying if I said I knew it would be huge,” Everson, 54, says. “I didn’t get that sense until after the decision, by how fast New Jersey declared, ‘We’re taking bets!’ They were shooting for June 1.”
The first legal single-game sports wager in New Jersey was made June 14, 2018, at William Hill’s Monmouth Park sportsbook-sports bar, which had been under construction for months.
It’s prudent to pause, and applaud, Jersey’s six-year court battle.
Gov. Chris Christie hatched it, handing the baton to Gov. Philip D. Murphy. Dennis Drazin, the CEO of Monmouth Park operator Darby Development, and New Jersey state senator Ray Lesniak were other vital shepherds.
They banked on the Tenth Amendment, regarding states’ rights.
“Christie thought, ‘If we could just get this to the Supreme Court.’ The Tenth Amendment, such a beautiful, glorious amendment,” Everson says. “So much has happened in the last 4œ years. Amazing.
“But there’s a long way to go. We are far from a mature market.”
DOUBLE TALK
Everson (sounds like Everton, the soccer club from Liverpool) encountered some slapstick as he chronicled sports betting’s boom, none more comical than the difference between “handle” and “hold.”
Handle is the overall money that exchanges hands. Hold is the amount of losing wagers sportsbooks retain as profit. Typically, annual hold is around 5%, net profit might be 2%.
He encountered many people, especially politicos, who didn’t know handle from hold. He’s far too classy to name names.
“Astonishing,” Everson says. “It showed they did no research whatsoever and had no knowledge for how to craft smart, effective legislation or regulatory policy. One informs the other, obviously.
“So you end up, for a while, with some really crummy legislation. Some failed, thankfully. Some made it through [the process]. Hopefully, more and more [crummy legislation] will get weeded out.”
Fine-tuning, he says.
For instance, betting on Illinois college teams within its borders had been verboten. This past fall, in-person wagers at brick-and-mortar books were allowed, but no player propositions and nothing via apps.
In New Jersey, no wagering is allowed on in-state colleges or college events, so those patrons bolt to New York for such action — and vice versa, for Empire State residents.
Veteran bettors in those jurisdictions just might, as they’d done for years, visit Uncle Joe around the corner or an offshore entity.
David Rebuck, the director of New Jersey’s Division of Gaming Enforcement, told Everson that was indeed a caveat to getting sports betting legalized. It counters American Gaming Association (AGA) efforts to combat illegal wagering.
Everson prefaces a comment, on certain wagers not being allowed in certain states, by saying he has dealt with many astute AGA officials.
“[But] you’re only encouraging a push to offshores or other unregulated markets, which goes against why you said you wanted it legally,’’ he says. ‘‘Defeats your own purpose.”
He sees further expansion, into maybe 10 more states, in the next four years. He’d like more patrons to experience what a Circa Sports has to offer; high-dollar wagers being welcomed, winners not getting barred.
Competing interests have foiled California, Florida and Texas plans.
“It’s hard to say what it’ll take to get them there,” Everson says.
Fine-tuning.
He is bullish on Nevada congresswoman Dina Titus’ 10-year effort to abolish the quarter-percent federal sports-betting tax.
“She’s arguing that this tax is ineffective and should be repealed,’’ he says. ‘‘I agree. That can be invested more efficiently at the local level.”
RECORDING HISTORY
Everson’s videos with sportsbook oddsmen, on line movements and sharp money flows, and patron reactions in those books have earned him a huge following.
For the 2022 football season, he moved to VegasInsider.com, where he continues to produce electric Scenes From Sin City vignettes.
Some have been epic, such as Gonzaga’s 93-90 overtime victory over UCLA in the 2021 Final Four, from the Westgate SuperBook.
“All of a sudden,’’ Everson says, ‘‘half the crowd is overwhelmed and happy; the other half has their heads in their hands, like, ‘I just got hit by a truck!’ Incredible.”
At the Mirage, he captured the Cubs clinching the World Series in 2016.
“A weeknight, and it was packed,’’ he says. ‘‘One of the best. I still use that B Roll in reports from books.”
Another all-timer arrived on March 15, 2018. At the SuperBook, 11th-seeded Loyola zapped sixth-seeded Miami 64-62 on a buzzer-beating three-point shot by Donte Ingram.
A day later, he taped the Maryland-Baltimore County Retrievers becoming the first 16 seed to upend a No. 1 seed, Virginia.
Friends carried a pal, wearing a rubber retriever mask, around the SuperBook on their shoulders, all barking and hollering.
“I want to convey the entertainment value of sports betting,’’ Everson says. ‘‘When you’re in a book for a major event and something happens that never happened before, there’s no better place to be. I live for that.”
And breaking news, even from paradise.
