Soccer kicks aside PGA golf in Day 1 of mobile sports betting popularity
With the coronavirus shutdown top of mind and the state’s first online sportsbook in hand, Illinois bettors have turned to footy.
Overseas soccer matches drew 78% of the money wagered Thursday on BetRivers.com with the launch of legal, mobile sports betting in Illinois through Rivers Casino.
Representatives for the Des Plaines gambling house declined to share the inaugural handle or the overall number of bets placed. But beyond the soccer-happy handle percentage, they said about 60% of the Illinoisans who created accounts to plunk money down put at least some of their money on soccer.
Most of that money — 56% — was placed on La Liga Spanish football and Real Madrid’s winning matchup against Valencia.
As for the rest of the action, bettors chipped in about 17% of the handle on PGA Tour golf and threw 5% on Korean baseball.
The bullish market for soccer — or football, as the rest of the world calls it — is expected to even out as more sports return to the board after months of inaction due to the pandemic. There are varying levels of optimism for the NHL, NBA and MLB to hammer out deals with their respective players’ associations to return to action this summer.
After its sportsbook launch in March was spoiled by the shutdown, Rivers became the first of the state’s seven licensed casinos to offer online sports betting, a crucial market that draws the vast majority of the handle in other states where it’s legal. About threequarters of Rivers’ Day 1 bets were made from cellphones as opposed to computers, a figure that’s expected to rise.
In addition to casinos and racetracks, stadiums such as Soldier Field and the United Center are eligible to apply for sports betting licenses under Illinois’ law, but they have yet to do so.
‘Any lane?” I asked the lifeguard last week, as I stood before the shimmering blue pool at the North Suburban YMCA.
“Not many sign up this time of day,” she said, apologetically.
The pool was completely empty. I felt like King Farouk.
“It’s like a dream!” I gloated. “Except for the plague part.”
It might say something about the mundane quality of my existence. But during months of lockdown, when I tried to look forward to the future, swimming laps at the Y was the first benchmark of the return of ordinary life.
I kept paying dues, through April and May, even though the Y was closed. Because a) the Y rocks; b) I want the Y to survive — not all of them did; c) the dues aren’t that much — de minimus, as lawyers say; and d) I didn’t want to be what in legal circles is called “a jerk.”
But let’s say I were a jerk. Let’s say I angrily demanded my dues back; only about 15% of members canceled, according to the Y. Would I get them? That would depend on the exact wording of the membership agreement, on what kind of force majeure clause it has. Force ma-what?
“It’s a phrase that nobody knew about until three months ago, even among lawyers,” said Abbe Lowell, a top trial attorney in the Washington, D.C., office of Chicago’s Winston & Strawn.
We were talking because D.C.’s Shakespeare Theatre Company is hosting “A Midsummer Night’s Force Majeure” today. Like the mock trials of Socrates, Helen of Troy and the like Chicago’s Hellenic Museum puts on here, the Washington Bard Association is staging a mock trial around a performance of “Pyramus and Thisbe” being canceled after the lead actor is turned into a donkey.
On the bench will be a quartet of wellrespected judges, led by Merrick B. Garland. Lowell will be opposed by former White House counsel Kathryn Ruemmier.
Regular readers know that I live with one practicing lawyer and two soon-to-be attorneys — my wife is an assistant attorney general, and both my boys are displaced law students. So there may be some Stockholm syndrome here. But I enjoyed hashing over legal fine points with Lowell.
“They’re called mock trials, but it’s mostly mock appellate arguments,” he said.
The event is based on “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.”
“In the play-within-a-play, the Duke of Athens is going to marry,” Lowell said. “He hired a group of actors to do a play for his wedding. In the play, among other mischief, Robin Goodfellow, known as Puck, plays all sorts of tricks on Nick Bottom and turns his head into a donkey head. The duke is disappointed and files a lawsuit. The question becomes whether having the lead actor’s head turned into a donkey is an act of God, a force majeure.”
That would all depend on the wording of the contract, I observed, having done my own due diligence.
“The employment contract for the performance we are talking about says ‘war, revolution, crime or an act of the gods,’ ” he said. “And ‘act of the gods’ includes earthquakes, epidemics, fire, floods, hurricane or volcanoes.”
But nothing about donkey heads?
“Is this an act of the gods, having a head turned into a donkey?” Lowell said. “When a contract has the word ‘including,’ it’s illustrative and not exhaustive.”
Sounds fun. The event costs $50 for lawyers, $25 for educators, $10 for law clerks and is free for students and summer associates. Learn more at www.shakespearetheatre.org/events/virtual-mock-trial/.
While I had Lowell on the phone, I had to ask: What’s with lawyers and the theater?
“Theater and the law have always been connected,” he said. “Theater is a performance art. Trial law is a performance art. The difference is, an actor memorizes a script. With a lawyer, there is no script. You have to go with whatever’s happening from the witness box.”
More like improv, then. Doing this online has to be tough.
“Yes, it is very challenging,” Lowell said. “Imagine how that’s like, with multiple judges in different locations figuring out a timing mechanism, thinking about how people are going to interrupt each other to ask questions. We worked it out, a little bit of work-inprogress, a little bit of the unknown.”
Sailing off into the unknown is what life is all about right now.