Ditka Helps Indiana Officially Launch Sports Betting
Legal sports betting began in Indiana on September 1, at the Ameristar Casino in East Chicago, just in time for the NFL regular season to begin. There are other venues who are following suit. And the race is most certainly on for customers.
How Does Mike Ditka Help Indiana Officially Launch Sports Betting?
We say that because neighboring Illinois has been a little slow to the table, not with its approval of sports betting, but rather its establishment of a set of rules and regulations by which the activity will be conducted. And it might be a few months before they are able to get that done. As such, they are going to fall behind, as locations such as the Ameristar, the Horseshoe Casino in Hammond and the Blue Chip Casino in Michigan City, are just a stone’s throw away from the major population center of Chicago.
And they are trotting out the local legends. Mike Ditka, the Hall of Fame player for the Bears who was also the head coach the last time Chicago won the Super Bowl, and Devin Hester, who returned a kickoff for a touchdown the last time the Bears appeared in the Super Bowl, were special guests at the grand opening of the Ameristar-East Chicago sportsbook, which at the moment consists of five sports betting windows and a number of free-standing wagering kiosks.
Most of the customers who were interviewed by reporters expressed that they enjoyed the convenience factor; that Las Vegas may be a difficult place to get to, but if they can drive just a short distance to find a location where they can out down a casual wager and sit and watch the game, that was a real attraction.
Betting On Mobile Devices
There is yet another leap beyond this, of course. It will be only a matter of time until these same Indiana gaming establishments have the ability to enable their patrons to place their bets on a mobile device, thus increasing the level of convenience, and when that happens, there is the potential for a genuine explosion in popularity. The process the casinos will go through is to affect a partnership with companies who specialize in online betting.
The governor even got in on the act.
Republican Eric Holcomb, who signed the sports betting bill into law a little more than three months ago, was politically correct as he strode up to the window at the Indiana Grand Casino in Shelbyville and placed $10 wagers on the Indianapolis Colts (to win the Super Bowl), Indiana Pacers (to win the NBA title) and Indiana Fever (to win that night’s WNBA game), with a pledge to donate any winnings to the Indiana Canine Action Network.
Indiana is now the 13th state that has approved sports betting – the result of last year’s Supreme Court ruling to strike down the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (PASPA), which had prohibited sports wagering in states that had not already “grandfathered” it in.
And those gaming establishments in Northwest Indiana now have the ability to leverage those offerings they now have at their disposal against casinos in Illinois that will be looking for their piece of the action.
