The leagues allege in the lawsuit that gambling fosters "suspicion and skepticism" in sports. Concerns about threats to the integrity of the game, however, have largely been ignored in Delaware, where there are no professional teams or Division I universities to lead the lobbying effort against the sports lottery.
This year, over the opposition of the leagues, Delaware passed legislation allowing three kinds of betting: spread bets on individual games; over-unders on the total score of a single game; and the "parlay lotteries" that existed in the 1970s, involving selecting over-unders across multiple games.
"We're trying to generate revenues and jobs for Delaware," said Joe Rogalsky, a spokesman for Gov. Jack Markell. Rogalsky described sports gambling as giving Delaware a "competitive advantage" over any state east of the Rockies.
As the legislation worked its way through Delaware's General Assembly, Markell sought an advisory opinion from the state's Supreme Court on the constitutionality of his plan. The court found, as it had in the 1970s, that the chance-driven, parlay lotteries are legal.
But the court also concluded that it lacked enough information to offer an opinion on the constitutionality of single-game wagers. Does chance or skill determine who beats the spread when the Ravens play the Steelers? To be legal in Delaware, the answer must be "chance."
"Any smart gambler will not bet on parlays because they're skewed in favor of the casino and the state, and you're made a sucker beyond belief," said Richard O. Davies, author of Betting the Line; Sports Wagering in American Life. "If I were Delaware, I'd definitely want gambling on individual games because that's the only way they're going to be able to attract intelligent gamblers who do their research."
But Mark Nichols, chairman of the economics department at the University of Nevada-Reno, said Delaware is making "a lot of fuss" over very little money.
"Sports is just a tiny segment of overall gambling, 2 to 3 percent of casino revenue," said Nichols, who has researched the effects of gambling expansions on government revenues. "It's such a tiny fraction of the money, and Delaware has this idea that it's some kind of saving grace for the state, and I don't think it is."
Baltimore Sun reporter Laura Smitherman contributed to this article.
