Washington 1st NFL team with betting on cable TV

Washington will become the first NFL team to have a gamblingfocused telecast of its games, offering cash prizes to viewers who correctly predict ingame outcomes during the preseason.

The telecasts on the regional cable network NBC Sports Washington will follow a formula established by Washington’s NBA neighbors, the NBA’s Wizards. The Wizards, however, offered the freetoplay contests during the regular season. The football team will have them only during the four preseason games, when NBC Sports Washington has TV rights.

The network will continue to offer a traditional telecast on its main channel, while the gamblingfocused telecast will air simultaneously on its secondary channel, NBC Sports Washington Plus. The Wizards offered the alternate telecast on eight games last season, and they received increased ratings and fan engagement, said Damon Phillips, the network’s general manager.

Starting the interactive telecasts now allows the network to be ready when legal online or mobile sports betting becomes available in its viewing area, Phillips said. In theory, the network could accept realtime wagers on proposition bets offered during the telecast if it partnered with a sports book.

“Down the road, there are a number of possibilities,” Phillips said. “Who knows where the different regulatory entities are going to end up on sports betting, and we just want to make sure we’re ready to be able to respond to it.”

For now, the games are free to play and the network will give $1,000 in cash to one winner per quarter of each game.

“We think this is the way of the future. There’s going to be a gamification of television broadcasts, and this is one of the first examples of it,” Phillips said.

The District of Columbia Council legalized sports betting in Washington this year, although the regulations have not been finalized and no sports books have opened. Bills have been introduced to legalize sports betting in Virginia and Maryland, which would require voters in those states to approve it in a referendum.

Delaware and West Virginia, which are in the NBC Sports Washington viewing area, are among the 10 states that already have legal sports books. Neither state currently has online or mobile betting, however.

Jessie Johnson, a spokeswoman for the NFL team, said the league was aware of the planned telecasts and raised no objection.