The nation's major professional sports leagues and the NCAA sued Friday to stop Delaware from launching single-game betting - and any wagering on sports other than football - before the NFL season starts this fall.
If a federal judge grants the leagues' demands, Delaware's "sports lottery" would be limited, hampering efforts to balance the state's budget.
A victory for the leagues also would curb, if slightly, an effort among Mid- Atlantic states to expand gambling, which is viewed as a politically safer revenue source than tax increases.
"Delaware would be able to offer something other states can't," said Maryland House Speaker Michael E. Busch. "That would give them a marketing tool that nobody else would have. You attract families in which the husband likes to bet on sports games and the wife likes to use slot machines."
State Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller said, "We don't want that on our borders."
Congress banned sports betting in 1992 but grandfathered in four states that previously had it - Nevada, Oregon, Montana and Delaware - with the caveat that the franchise could not be expanded beyond what was then offered.
In the mid-1970s, Delaware ran a lottery in which players marked cards with their projections on a slate of three to 14 NFL games per weekend.
"We're looking to shut down single-game betting because Delaware did not do single-game betting in 1976," said Brian McCarthy, a spokesman for the NFL, which is leading the lawsuit. "We recognize that under federal law, four states have the right to do sports betting, but we're working to contain it where we can and make states follow the law."
Delaware's former football lottery imploded before the end of its first season after the state's lottery office botched the betting lines on a set of games, which gamblers capitalized on. The state had to draw on an emergency fund to pay off all the winners and then shut down the operation, according to the leagues' lawsuit.
The idea resurfaced this year as a way to plug Delaware's $750 million deficit. Nevada has long run sports betting out of its casinos; Oregon had sports betting for 18 years but gave it up to host a round of the NCAA men's basketball tournament; and Montana recently started a sports lottery that has generated modest sales, according to an April article in The Baltimore Sun.
