Last week, a federal appeals court blocked an attempt by Delaware to allow comprehensive, single-game sports betting.
Delaware’s ability to engage in any type of sports betting arises from the fact that Delaware engaged in limited sports betting in 1976. The 1992 federal law prohibiting new sports betting exempted states with such programs from 1976 through 1990.
But, as the appeals court concluded last week, Delaware will be permitted only to do now what it did then -- football parlay betting on three of more games.
Since Delaware didn’t have single game betting on football (or any betting on other sports), nothing else will be allowed.
On Monday, the federal appeals court reiterated that football parlay betting will be permitted, and Delaware governor Jack Markell plans to proceed.
“While we are disappointed the decision does not provide the flexibility we had hoped for, Delaware is still the only state east of the Rocky Mountains that can offer a legal sports lottery on NFL football,” Markell said in a statement, via USA Today. “We continue to believe this is an opportunity to create jobs and generate revenue to help us keep teachers in the classroom, police on the street and maintain other core commitments of state government.”
Markell also said that Delaware has not ruled out seeking a rehearing of the case in the federal appeals court, or an appeal to the United States Supreme Court. (Both avenues are, as a practical matter, long shots.)
Lost in the shuffle here is the reality that the NFL still presumably plans to push the notion in a Delaware federal court that any form of football betting violates the Delaware constitution, which permits gambling based only on games of chance and not skill. The Delaware Supreme Court previously ruled, via an advisory opinion, that parlay betting does not involve skill, but that ruling is not binding on the federal court that is handling the present case.