Kansas Racing and Gaming Commission Director Todd Allen recently said that the commission hasn’t set a “go-live date” yet. He noted that “a lot of processes…have to take place still” in a recent interview with Covers. KRGC hasn’t approved regulations for sports betting, but Allen said temporary regulations could be approved by commissioners at the Aug. 12 meeting.

Kansas Sports Betting Processes Set by Law

The sports betting legislation, Senate Bill 84, set timelines for completion of certain processes. KRGC was supposed to set parameters for background checks by Aug. 1, with the commission beginning those investigations by Aug. 15. The Kansas Lottery is supposed to set out the licensing processes for online sportsbooks by Sept. 1 under the law.

When Gov. Laura Kelly signed the sports betting bill into law in May, observers hoped wagers would begin by football season. College games begin Labor Day weekend, while the NFL begins on Sept. 8. It now appears that won’t happen.

While Allen said he understands the disappointment if state agencies don’t complete the processes by NFL Week 1, he pointed out that “our job is to ensure that a safe and honest product is put in place for bettors.”

Cory Thone, spokesman for the Kansas Lottery, recently told WIBW that his agency is working on the issue and it’s still possible for an early September launch of live and online sports betting.

“[The process] is moving forward, but the biggest thing for us and everyone is we want the product to be functional, secure, and safe to use,” he said.

Industry Could Grow Large Quickly in State

The sports betting law sets a 10 percent tax on revenue, allowing sports books at four state-owned casinos. This includes Boot Hill Casino and Resort, Hollywood Casino at Kansas Speedway, Kansas Star Casino and Kansas Crossing Casino and Hotel. Those casinos can also partner with up to 50 retailers to offer betting kiosks in other business locations.

SB 84 would also authorize up to 12 online sportsbooks, permitting casinos to partner with up to three online operators.

Eight partnerships have already been announced, with heavy-hitters such as BetMGM, FanDuel, Caesars and DraftKings planning to offer online betting in Kansas.

The post Kansas Sports Betting Regulations Taking Time appeared first on OnlineGambling.com | OG News.

Gov. Charlie Baker must sign the Massachusetts Sports Wagering Act within 10 days before it can become law, but he has already expressed support for the motion. Legislators in the joint Sports Betting Conference Committee voted for the bill 36-4.

Massachusetts Lawmakers Reach Sports Betting Deal

Speaker of the House Ron Mariano announced the deal via tweet early Monday, touting the “immense economic benefits of a legal sports betting industry” for the state. Barely more than a week earlier, Mariano told reporters the sides remained far apart on a deal.

One of the points of contention was betting on college sports, particularly those within the state. The final version of the bill will only permit betting on events involving in-state colleges when they are taking part in tournaments such as March Madness.

Sports governing bodies can also enter into commercial agreements with sportsbooks and share in the revenues without the need to obtain sports betting licenses.

The act will allow both live and online betting and tax sportsbooks at rate of 15 percent of net revenue from in-person wagers and 20 percent on online wagers.

Betting at Sports Venues Could Come in Future

Of the 30 states that have legalized sports betting, a handful have authorized wagering at sports betting kiosks at professional sports venues. While legislators considered that move in Massachusetts, they ultimately did not include that provision as part of the negotiated deal. The legislation will, however, include a plan to study possibly implementing betting kiosks at sports arenas, bars and restaurants in the future.

DraftKings, one of the national leaders in sports betting, is headquartered in Boston. CEO Jason Robins said in a statement he hopes the governor will sign the act quickly “to protect consumers and grow revenue in the Commonwealth.”

Analysts expect sports betting to generate $60 million or more in tax revenue in Massachusetts.

Jon Keller, a political analyst for WBZ-TV, said he heard that sports betting “could be up-and-running in time for the start of football season.”

The post Massachusetts Could See Sports Betting by Football Season appeared first on OnlineGambling.com | OG News.

How big? About 350 dealers set up at this year’s show, taking place from July 27-31 in 460,000 square feet of convention space. In addition, plenty of corporate entities are in attendance, including manufacturers such as Topps and Panini, grading companies like PSA and Beckett, distributors like GTS and Southern Hobby, and many more. Basically, anybody who is anybody in the card world comes to exhibit.

Plenty to See and Do

Long lines greeted convention attendees as things kicked off on Wednesday with a preview and Thursday with the first full day of activities. In addition to rows and rows of display cases filled with cards for sale, visitors could take part in box breaks, get promo cards and snag signatures from one of dozens of autograph guests from the world of sports.

While some attendees complained on sports card forums about overpriced dealers, overfilled parking garages and the general lack of deodorant, most expressed their excitement at the sheer number of cool collectibles to purchase or just view.

Valuable Sports Cards at the National

The common refrain about the National is that if you can’t find it there, you can’t find it anywhere. That may be truer this year than ever before. Goldin Auctions came with a graded T206 Honus Wagner and a 1997-98 Upper Deck Michael Jordan patch-auto card numbered to 23, and Heritage Auctions showed off its 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle graded 9.5 Mint by SGC. This is the finest known example of that classic card and is currently up for auction, with experts anticipating it will sell for more than $10 million, shattering the record for a single card. The bidding is already up over $6 million and will end on Aug. 27.

If you’re like me, you’re dreaming of the National from afar. Hopefully, we will all be lucky enough to attend the 2023 NSCC in Chicago.

The post National Sports Collectors Convention Takes Atlantic City by Storm appeared first on OnlineGambling.com | OG News.

Here are three points to consider as your craft lineups for Tuesday’s game:

1. New rules affect playing reserves

In the past, you could slot some benchwarmers onto your team to save salary and hope the All-Star Game goes extra innings, potentially giving your players an extra at-bat or two. But not with the new rules, which will see a home run derby of three players from each team if the game is tied after nine innings. Also of note: the DFS sites have made it clear that stats from the home run derby won’t count toward lineup scores. That could have resulted in some really skewed points totals otherwise.

2. J-Rod’s too expensive

Not to pick on Julio Rodriguez, as he’s one of several reserves who’s priced too high on DraftKings, but since his superb performance in Monday’s Home Run Derby, he’s on many DFS players’ radars. While guys like Rodriguez, Juan Soto, and Kyle Schwarber may very well put up solid point totals, the unpredictability of when they enter the All-Star Game and how many at-bats they’ll get (see the first point) makes their selections for lineups tricky when they’re priced higher than some of the starters. They should be avoided in formats such as 50/50, but can be played in massive-field tournaments in an attempt to differentiate lineups from the rest of the field.

3. Stacking’s not hard

The pricing for the All-Star Game is pretty soft this year, and it’s not hard to stack lineups with starters high in their league’s respective lineups. On DraftKings, you can use five players from one league and one player from the other league for the maximum stacking ability.

I found it wasn’t hard to create what felt like stolid stacks for either the American or National league. I would avoid using players like Aaron Judge and Shohei Ohtani in the captain’s spot in most situations, however, even if they’re affordable because they’ll be very popular picks so you can’t gain an advantage on the field.  My top captain’s pick is Mookie Betts, playing in his home park and batting second for the National League.

The post 3 Tips for MLB All-Star Game DFS Strategy appeared first on OnlineGambling.com | OG News.

Production delays forced months-long waits for some of Panini’s hottest football products. Prizm, the crown jewel of the company’s line (at least among the semi-affordable products; I’m not counting cards like Flawless and National Treasures that can cost a month’s salary or more), just released in June. Two more well-liked brands, Donruss Optic and Select, are scheduled for release this month.

2022 rookie class not expected to drive sales

Because QBs drive the sales of football boxes, 2022 will likely be an underwhelming year. Collectors and investors don’t expect players like Kenny Pickett and Matt Corral to perform like Joe Burrow and Justin Herbert of the 2020 class, or Mac Jones and Trevor Lawrence of the 2021 class.

Already, dealers are dumping boxes of one of the newest products of the 2022 class, Chronicles Draft, for less than $100 a box, or about the factory allocated cost. By comparison, 2020 boxes sell for around $400 on DealerNet, a popular business-to-business website for dealers, and 2021 boxes go for around $175.

This provides opportunity, however. While the newest draft class isn’t expected to make a lot of noise in 2022, if at least one of the rookie quarterbacks gets to start at some point this season — and performs well — the value of the 2022 sealed boxes will likely shoot up. I’ve secured about half a case of the aforementioned Chronicles Draft for my card store at $95 per box. Since it includes four autos or memorabilia cards per box – which are popular with collectors – it seems like a no-lose situation at that price. I’ll look to buy up more 2022 football cards if the boxes continue to sell at bargain-basement prices.

Collectors still chasing rookies from previous years

In the meantime, I would expect 2020 and 2021 football product to continue to sell at a brisk pace this summer and fall as players continue to chase the hot rookie QBs from those classes. And players like running back Jonathan Taylor (2020), and wide receiver Ja’Marr Chase (2021), may continue to play well and be among the rare non-quarterbacks who see their rookie card values spike.

As an investor, there’s also opportunity to invest in sealed wax from earlier years before the season begins. For example, quarterback Kyler Murray enjoyed a scorching start in the opening weeks of the 2021 season, and, in correlation, the prices of sealed 2019 football products containing his rookie cards experienced an increase in value.

This year, I’m buying up some 2015 product as cheaply as I can find it. Not only does it contain rookie cards of quarterback Marcus Mariotta, the likely starter for the local favorite Atlanta Falcons, but it also has the premier cards of wide receiver Stefon Diggs, the favorite target of Josh Allen in Buffalo.

Sure, it’s a gamble, but just as with 2022 football products, due to the low cost, it might be a risk worth taking.

The post Card Collectors Corner: 2021 Still Releasing as 2022 Football Cards Sell Cheaply appeared first on OnlineGambling.com | OG News.

Professional Sports Authenticator (PSA) had to temporarily suspend some of its authentication and grading services last year due to overwhelming demand while working through a backlog of about 12 million cards submitted to the company as the market boomed. The California-based company reported that in early 2021, it was receiving more than 500K cards per week for grading, a 10x increase from previous years.

PSA expands operations

To meet the demand, PSA and its parent company, Collectors Holdings, Inc., boosted staff to 1,200 total team members and added a 130K square-foot facility in New Jersey. Also in 2021, PSA acquired Genamint, a software company dealing with trading cards, to improve its operations.

PSA has slowly reimplemented its lower-cost grading tiers and was able to reopen its lowest level, called “value,” this month. PSA is still working through a small backlog and says all existing orders will be serviced and shipped to customers before new value orders are processed.

“We know that customers have been looking forward to this day for a long time so we thank them all for their patience,” said PSA President Kevin Lenane. “We never could have anticipated the flood of submissions that we saw last year and our entire team has been focused on getting back to where we are today.”

When PSA made its shutdown announcement in March 2021, the company said it hoped to reopen all levels within three months. That process ended up taking nearly 15 months.

Higher grading costs for all

Collectors now also must fork over much more to get their cards graded. Whereas they paid around $10 for value service before it shut down, the same service now costs $30. In addition, to use this service, collectors must join the PSA Collectors Club, which requires an annual membership fee of $99. Otherwise, the cheapest grading option is economy at $50 per card.

Nat Turner, CEO of Collectors Holdings, says he hopes to again offer grading services similar in cost to the previous tiers, but he hasn’t laid out a clear path forward to this.

The other major grading companies have also increased their rates in the past two years as the market grew. Sportscard Guaranty Corporation (SGC) offers grading starting at $30 ($23 for group submitters), while Beckett Grading Services (BGS), which also temporarily shut down some services in 2021, charges $25 for economy grading with no sub-grades (and $35 with sub-grades).

The post PSA Reimplements All Card Grading Services — at Much Higher Cost appeared first on OnlineGambling.com | OG News.

Given the popularity of “slabs,” the term those in the hobby use for graded cards, and the boost in value cards can get when they receive high grades, picking which cards to grade and which company to use are important factors.

I thought I’d take this month’s Card Collectors Corner column to share the advice I give to my customers.

The Value Must Be There

Recently, someone messaged the store’s Facebook account with some photos of their cards and asked me their value. I told them the entire lot was worth about $25. They then messaged me back and asked me which to get graded. I explained that unless they just wanted to get a few of their favorites slabbed just because they like those cards, it wouldn’t be worth paying grading fees.

That’s because it costs $10 and up to grade cards in the current market, so many of the cheaper base cards that many collectors and investors submitted in the past when fees were lower just aren’t worth sending these days.

Close Examination is Important

Graders determine an overall grade by looking at four factors: centering, corners, edges and surface. Centering is clearly evident upon first glance of a card. Corners and edges can mainly be discerned with a close look, but you need a magnifying glass to see potential flaws better as these can be the difference between a near mint, mint or gem mint grade sometimes. Surface flaws are the easiest to miss, as you must sometimes tilt the card so it will reflect light and reveal scratches and other potential issues that could hurt the grade.

Stick with These Four Grading Companies

In the collections I’ve bought since I opened my store, I’ve encountered many slabs of companies like GEM and Advanced Grading that have come and gone, and even “gem mint” graded cards in these slabs rarely sell for much more than raw, or ungraded, versions of some of these cards. You have to be leery of some of the newer companies because if they don’t have staying power, you’re wasting your money paying grading fees.

I fear that HGA, which quickly became popular in the past year because it offered color coding on its labels to match the colors on the cards, could be the next flash in the pan. The company seems to have quickly fallen out of favor and put a pause on accepting new submissions in April.

Instead, consider these four companies for your grading needs: PSA, BGS, SGC and CSG. Professional Sports Authenticator, Beckett Grading Service and Sportscard Guaranty Corporation have all been around for decades, while Certified Sports Guaranty is new but is the arm of a company that has graded coins and comics for years.

Unfortunately, the cost of grading has seen a sharp increase due to the popularity of slabs. PSA found itself with a backlog of millions of cards and had to cut off its low-tiered services for now. You’ll pay $100 per card now for most grading with PSA so that should be reserved for only the best cards. CSG may be the best low-cost option at the moment at $20 per card, or $12 per card when sending in an order of at least 50 cards.

The post Card Collectors Corner: A Primer on Sports Card Grading appeared first on OnlineGambling.com | OG News.

Instead, consider these five players for your Masters DFS rosters:

Justin Thomas ($10,300 on DraftKings, $11,900 on FanDuel)

JT has enjoyed an exceptional season so far, making 10 of 10 cuts, with six top-10 finishes. He’s one of only two players in the field who has gained over one stroke on approach per round, an important metric at Augusta considering its protected greens. Thomas is a perfect six for six making the cut at the Masters, with a fourth-place finish in 2020.

Brooks Koepka ($9,400 on DK, $10,900 on FD)

Koepka’s alter ego over the past year might as well be Mr. Major, given his tie for second at the PGA Championship and tie for fourth at the US Open. Koepka has proven strong at the Masters with three finishes inside the top 11 over the past four years.

Tyrrell Hatton ($8,000 on DK, $9,500 on FD)

Hatton has missed just one cut on the PGA Tour season, with four top 10s in nine starts. Those are strong numbers for a guy with this low of a salary. And it’s not as if he’s a scrub at the Masters, as he finished inside the top 20 last year.

Matt Fitzpatrick ($7,700 on DK, $9,600 on FD)

Following three straight top 10s, Fitzpatrick missed the cut at the Players Championship, then proceeded to finish fifth at the Valspar Championship. Fitzpatrick’s game is strong heading into this week, and he’s played well at Augusta, making six of seven cuts and tying for seventh in 2016.

Kevin Na ($6,800 on DK, $8,300 on FD)

Na could prove to be more of a gamble given his mediocre record on the season that includes just three of six cuts made and no finishes inside the top 10. But Na finished in a tie for 12^th at last year’s Masters (the same finish he recorded in 2012 and 2015), so he has some history on the course.

The post Masters DFS: Avoid Tiger, but Roster These Guys appeared first on OnlineGambling.com | OG News.

On that day in 2021, I fulfilled a dream from my teenage years of one day running my own card store. As one might surmise, operating a small business has come with its ups and downs. Here’s a look back at my first year:

Being all things to all people isn’t always so profitable

I certainly wasn’t afraid to open my wallet when it came to stocking the store in the first year, probably to my detriment. Armed with a business loan, I bought up a lot of sealed product and quite a few local collections. I’ve done well on the collections I bought, but probably went overboard on buying sealed boxes. That’s partially in an attempt to build volume with a distributor in hopes of receiving product at lower factory allocated cost, which I detailed in a previous column.

I’ve also tried to have a little bit of something for anyone who might walk in the door, but after a year, I’ve learned the local clientele and what they’re likely to buy or not. That should help me be more profitable in my second year by buying less sealed product that I later have to dump off online for a loss to clear out my excess stock.

Creating a better balance of selling live and online

In the first few months I was open, I focused primarily on selling merchandise only in-store, which worked well in the early going when business boomed thanks to the newness factor. Sales leveled off in the ensuing months, and I bought some massive collections – which now fill a sizable storage unit. I’ve since done a better job of using online platforms to move merchandise, from eBay to Facebook to up-and-comer Whatnot. These days, I do about half of my business live and half of it online.

Making real friendships

One thing the woman who ran Baseball Cards & Comics, the most successful card store in Cullman during the heyday of the 1990s, told me before I opened was that she hoped I made the types of lifelong friendships she did when she had her store. And I have. Regulars visit weekly – or multiple times a week – and we enjoy chatting about cards and other hot topics of the day. I’ve invited some to hang out with my other friends during guys’ nights. I suspect I will call many of them friends years down the road, whether I still have my card store or not.

The post Card Collectors Corner: Reflections on the First Year of My Card Store appeared first on OnlineGambling.com | OG News.

House Bill 2740 came together after much negotiation by the state’s gaming interests, who previously couldn’t agree on how to proceed on sports betting in Kansas. Representatives from private and Native American casinos, professional sports franchises, and horse track owners testified in support of the bill, but some dissension still exists as evidenced by Tuesday’s hearing.

Horse, greyhound track owners battle over bill

The legislation would permit the Kansas Lottery to contract with the managers of gaming facilities, who could create online platforms and offer wagering on-site. Under the bill, patrons of the soon-to-reopen Sedgwick County horse track owned by Las Vegas casino magnate Phil Ruffin could place sports wagers at betting kiosks, but those machines wouldn’t be permitted at greyhound tracks.

Jim Garland, executive director of the National Greyhound Association, and Mike O’Neil, a representative of the Kansas Greyhound Association, submitted written testimony to the Federal and State Affairs Committee criticizing Ruffin’s influence on the bill.

“This is akin to letting a McDonalds franchise owner write the laws on what other fast food companies are allowed to be operated in the state,” they wrote.

High target on tax revenue

Twenty percent of the revenue through online betting and 14% of the revenue from in-person bets would go into state coffers, with an estimated annual tax revenue of $50 million. Representatives of Penn National Gaming, which owns Hollywood Casino at Kansas Speedway in Kansas City, suggested the tax rate is too high, and called for a lower rate of 10% that they say is closer to the national average.

Rep. John Barker, R-Abilene, chairman of the Federal and State Affairs committee, said the panel will consider amendments and take action on the bill next week.

The Kansas Senate passed a competing sports betting bill last year, and the two chambers will have to work out unified legislation to send to the governor’s desk if the House passes HB 2740.

The post Kansas Considers Ambitious Sports Betting Bill appeared first on OnlineGambling.com | OG News.