Bettors turn to online with casinos closed

Las Vegas casinos are as empty as abandoned warehouses because the novel coronavirus has forced a government shutdown, but bettors will always find a way to bet.

Gamblers have resorted to getting their kicks on the Internet. It doesn’t seem to matter if it isn’t the same as dropping tokens into a slot machine, pulling the arm and waiting for the lyrical dingding-ding that signals a winning pull. Plus, bettors can gamble online sitting in front of their computer in their underwear.

“We’re known for our sportsbook first and foremost, but we do have a digital casino and live dealer casino,” Dave Mason, a sportsbook brand manager for betonline.ag, said in a recent phone call from Costa Rica. “We also have a great poker room.

“Sports have gone down, obviously, but business in both our casinos and poker is through the roof. We’re setting records right now.”

Mason would not get specific, but he said bettors would have wagered “tens of millions” on March Madness, which was canceled just as COVID-19 began paralyzing the country.

Bets on the NFL draft last month were up 500 percent from 2019 on betonline.ag, according to their publicity department. Those bets involved which players would go where, which players a particular team would draft, who would go in what round, etc.

Betting on UFC 249 on May 9 was up 1,000 percent from UFC 248 on March 7, which was staged five days before the NBA, NHL and MLB shut down.

“We had 30 to 40 prop bets on the NFL draft,” Mason said. “We had off-thewall stuff, like these marble races from Europe on YouTube. We had a guy handicap the marble races.

“Our creative juices are flowing to come up with all kinds of new ideas. Do they make up for no March Madness and no NBA? Absolutely not, but we’re making the best of a bad situation. The casino and poker are doing the heavy lifting, and our guys on the sports side are offering as much as we can possibly offer.”

Anyone interested in getting some action, or anyone just intrigued by what sports are available for wagering, can go to betonline. ag and click on sports. Note: You do not have to open an account to view the categories on which you can wager.

Bettors can wager online — and they do — on table tennis in Russia, the Czech Republic, China or Ukraine. They can wager on who will win the 2020 World Snooker Championship,

where a $100 bet on Lucas Brecal would net $8,000 if he prevails. Wagers are taken on darts, cricket, cycling — if there is competition, you can bet on it. You can bet on simulated UFC fights, NBA2K sim game and NFL sim games.

March Madness is history. The NHL, NBA and MLB are in limbo. The scheduled start of the NFL season is four months away.

“To me, the biggest week of the year is the first week of the NFL,” Mason said. “That’s probably the most important for the sportsbook, too, because you get them for Week 1 but you’re going to get a lot of them back for the whole season.

“March Madness is second because it’s around for three weeks. The Super Bowl is big, but they come in for one game and disappear the next day.”

You can bet on politics, too. A bettor wagering the Democrat nominee wins California in the Nov. 3 election would have to plunk down $2,500 to win $100. A $100 bet on the Democrat carrying Alabama would net $2,000. The bettor riding the Republican nominee to win Alabama would have to come up with $10,000 just to win $100.

You can even bet on the final digit on the closing Dow Jones number for the next day the market is open.

“If there is one positive from this (COVID-19) for us, it’s great for our PR,” Mason said. “I’m not saying it’s great because it totally sucks. But if you can put odds on (some of these off the wall sports), people want to talk about it.”

If you are a fan of the “Masked Singer,” you can click on “Entertainment” and bet on Frog, Turtle or Night Angel to be crowned champion.

Frog is the favorite at plus-115, followed by Turtle at plus-150 and Night Angel at plus-250.

Get your money down before the “Masked Singer” finale May 20.

“This is a contact disease and we play a contact sport. People see professional athletes as these invincible robots, but that’s not really the case.”