TORONTO — Fans 19-and-over and responsible sports betting enthusiasts in Ontario now have an additional avenue to enhance their Canadian Football League fandom through betting: NEO.bet. The Sportsbook and Casino platform is now one of the league’s Authorized Gaming Operators and an official Sportsbook Partner as it provides CFL fans with a higher standard of sports betting experience.
Hi Mike,
look I agree with you that they have to look everywhere to find ways to fund the league and its teams. But the airwaves and screen space are so saturated with fan duel and talking heads throwing out numbers that don’t interest me at least.
Does anyone have any idea how many actual fans are interested in this betting mania?
Not a big fan of these ads but I am also not a big fan of most ads, especially ones like the Sleeman ads last year that ran some 70,000 times during the season. As stated above, as long as it brings in revenues for the league I can ignore the betting ads just as easily as I can ignore the other ads. What I really don’t like is the half time betting segment they do, making it look like it is part of the half time program.
Ads to me are a good time for a break and if you’re following the game thread on this forum, a good time to read or type a post. I barely notice them.
As a staunch anti-gambler I can say I don’t mind the ads, but I detest the fact that it’s now being incorporated into the actual TSN broadcasts. What’s next? Are we going to see Matt holding a Sleeman during the show? Kate with a Twisted Tea?
Don’t get me wrong - I enjoy a good poker game (with limits), a drink and a good cigar - but all this online betting is a con for those who cannot afford to lose the money. I would really, really like to know how much money our governments (plural) have made over the past 40 years or so from all of the lotteries, all of the casinos and now online betting - and then have them explain why we can’t afford proper healthcare and education systems. I’m not impressed with the CFL becoming part of the money grab from the poor.
Governments have made even more money from cigarettes and booze. They also now make money from cannabis. As distasteful as government involvement in some of these vices may be to some, in my view it is far superior to what history has taught us is the alternative, namely organized crime.
Why not? TSN gets their revenue from ads. If the gambling sites or Wisers whiskey or Sleemans want to advertise on TSN that’s fine. The more money that TSN can make and if the CFL TV ratings go up then when the TV contact is up for renewal the CFL is in a better position to get a bigger contract.
As for government collecting revenue from gambling, lotteries, that’s great, no one is forcing people to gamble, buy lottery tickets etc.
Prostitution is next,it’ll keep them safe & off the street. Endless possibilities for TV revenue there, wonder how the panel will deal with that? Any ideas, Maaax?
To Jon - If you have a government who takes money from the public and spends very little of it on the public - there is no difference in the outcome as to what organized crime does with it. The fact is government today collects more than ever before and waste so much on nothing, I remember the days when buying an Irish Sweepstakes Ticket was against the law because government felt it was wrong to gamble - which was crazy thinking. Today it is even crazier with government encouraging people to gamble rather than to put food on the table, and then the public have to pay more to help those people. Our sense of a collective community conscience has been lost.
Having lived in Las Vegas, and that was years after my first of two visits to Atlantic City that were eye openers, and then living in Easton, PA not from what was was Bethlehem Sands casino, most of what I have seen does concur with your views as expressed and so do I.
Like most of us, most people do not want to make gambling illegal because the consequences as experienced were worse and would be worse in modern times.
It is however absolutely dreadful what both the casino owners and state or provincial and local government don’t do for the region or locality as promised after the deal is approved and the property is developed and opened. Via the lottery, the government does do somewhat better, but it’s never seemingly even close to all as promised.
Misappropriating or reallocating all that windfall revenue is the norm and not the exception in my experience, and that part of the equation in legal gambling is not the fault of habitual players and addicts.
Quite sinisterly during the pandemic as well for example, via their media puppets on local news in fact, these people also targeted as a more captive population with more frequent ads for gambling apps than ever.
Of course these were often the same people with other issues of addiction who were stuck at home more often, or when out and about it was certainly not to go to work.
The blame should go first to those courting the habitual and addicted players when the benefits do not show up as promised to society at large after approval of legalization and of any given casino or track proposal.
Atlantic City is well past its prime, which was mob-ridden as well. There is actually one good song by Bruce Springsteen about what happened there, which I only saw myself many years after the song was released in 1982:
The government may not spend all of it’s money wisely or where you would like to see it spent, but the masses will still benefit more from vice profits in the hands of the government than in the hands of organized crime. Far less violence too. It is the lesser of two evils. History teaches us that. We can thank prohibition for establishing the mafia in North America.
I also don’t know what you mean by “collective community conscience”. People have and always will want to enjoy their vices. Alcohol, drugs gambling, prostitution, etc. Time and time again various governments throughout history all over the world have tried to legislate some or all of these vices out of existence with absolutely zero success, aside from temporary successes in totalitarian states. The so called “war on drugs” is an excellent recent example of this total failure. You can’t legislate against human nature.
Not everyone and perhaps not yourself enjoy some or even any of these vices but I can assure you that enough people do that it is futile to try and prevent people from enjoying them. In fact the ruling class throughout history has tended to hypocritically enjoy vices more than the common folk even if they were officially banned. May as well be smart and practical and return as much of the money spent to the people as possible. It’s not a moral issue.
As someone who almost never gambles (a scratch ticket about once every five years), I like betting lines just to gauge how strong of a favorite one team is. Otherwise, it cheapens the experience for me.
I enjoy our weekly pick ‘ems. Nothing to gain or lose but my pride.
Yes. Instead of football luminaries going on about gambling, they should get the guy with the pencil thin mustache, cheap suit and toothpick in his teeth to report the betting lines.
