As New Jersey prepares for its next court hearing on Wednesday over its efforts to legalize sports betting, gaming officials in Canada are urging lawmakers to vote on a bill legalizing Las Vegas-style sports books.

A bill introduced almost two years ago would allow Canadians to wager on a single sporting event at a time. It’s also seen as way to draw U.S. gamblers to casinos just across the border from cities such as Detroit or Niagara Falls, N.Y.

Canada offers a sports lottery in which bettors can parlay three or more games, but single-game betting is illegal under the Canadian criminal code.

“We are like Delaware, which offers parlay cards for sports betting,” Paul Burns, vice president of public affairs with the Toronto-based Canadian Gaming Association, said in a phone interview. “Every sports bettor knows it’s not a great bet.”

Burns said legalizing sports betting would discourage Canadian bettors from wagering on National Hockey League or National Football League games offshore or with illegal bookmakers.

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With its plans to legalize sports gambling held up in federal court, New Jersey is allowing casinos to offer daily fantasy games as an alternative.

The states Division of Gaming Enforcement has published regulations establishing standards for casinos to offer fantasy sports tournaments starting April 22. The casinos can charge patrons an entry fee and pay out winnings through the casino cage, but the activity is not considered gambling.

Fantasy sports tournaments are contests in which participants create and manage teams, made up of individual players from real teams, which compete against other fantasy teams based on statistics that players generate during real games.

It’s too early to tell how these fantasy games will affect sports book operators in Las Vegas.

“I’ve read the regulations and need to digest them to see what the opportunities look like,” said Joe Asher, CEO of Las Vegas-based William Hill U.S., which operates 160 sports books and kiosks statewide and is the risk manager for the Delaware lotterys parlay bets on National Football League games. “But obviously its a step in the right direction.”

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Boosters of a proposed domed stadium project on the UNLV campus have mentioned an NFL Pro Bowl and NFL pre-season games as potential events that would help generate millions of dollars for the local economy.

But there’s only one problem. The NFL doesn’t appear likely it would stage a Pro Bowl event or sanction a game at the proposed “Mega-Event Center,” as officials for the University of Nevada, Las Vegas and their private development partner are calling the proposed 60,000-seat venue.

An NFL spokesman said this week it’s unlikely the league would have any interest in staging an all-star game event such as the Pro Bowl at the proposed UNLV stadium. The stadium project is $800 million to $900 million and boosters plan to seek state legislative approval of a tax district contained to the UNLV campus to help pay for construction.

In an email to the Las Vegas Review-Journal, NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy wrote sports gambling in Las Vegas is the reason the NFL would not likely get involved in holding a Pro Bowl or approving preseason games here.

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As the legal battle involving sports gambling moves to the next round in New Jersey, Delaware continues to experience a payoff from its decision to expand its limited sports lottery involving professional football games.

Now gamblers can bet not only in the state’s three racetrack casinos, but also in 31 restaurants, bars and nightclubs throughout Delaware.

Through 20 weeks, including the National Football League preseason, business is up 42.4 percent for the lottery to $22 million, compared with $15.4 million through the same period last year. And the expansion is not hurting its existing casino business, according to a state lottery official.

“The three casinos are showing no cannibalization and are up an aggregate of $1.2 million themselves, an increase of almost 8 percent,” said Vernon Kirk, director of the Delaware Lottery.

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Forget about baccarat for at least one month.

Football wagering revenues offset declines in baccarat results during September, propelling Nevada to a modest gaming revenue increase.

Statewide, casinos collected $892.7 million in gaming revenues in September, a 3.3 percent increase compared to the same month a year ago according to figures released Thursday by the Gaming Control Board.

On the Strip, casinos collected $496.5 million from gamblers during the month, a 1.2 percent increase over September 2011.

Baccarat results – which have predominantly been the stepping-off point for whether or not that state and the Strip had a positive revenue month over the past few years – declined in September.

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Marvin Rettenmaier
Photo: World Poker Tour

Today’s Boxscore

Marvin Rettenmaier $287,784 – WPT Merit Cyprus Classic

It looks like Marvin Rettenmaier might have a pretty decent handle on this poker thing. On Thursday he became the first player to ever win back-to-back World Poker Tour events when he captured the WPT Merit Cyprus Classic title. This was the first tournament of the WPT Season XI but he picked up where he left off after winning the WPT World Championship to wrap up Season X. In between his two titles, he only cashed seven times during the WSOP including a final table in the Mix-Max tournament.

Rettenmaier grabbed $287,784 for his win and perhaps can now afford to dress like a grown man.

This story was a little too much to be pushed down into the link dump and also an example why I continue to believe legalized online poker is a long ways off. Mister and Missus Smith still equate poker with those evil negative EV games sitting in the casino pits where the house has a huge edge.

Mike Florio of ProFootballTalk on NBCSports.com played the puppet for locked out NFL officials when he wrote a piece called Locked-out officials plan to point out replacement official’s poker past.

Per a source with knowledge of the situation, the locked-out officials will soon be making it known that Shannon Eastin, who will become the first female official to work an NFL game, has played in the World Series of Poker.

Multiple links containing reports from the 2007 event mention Eastin.

Holy crap, stop the presses! A person of legal age participated in a legal poker tournament so she must be willing to fix an NFL game for a Binion’s Daily buy-in and a corn dog. In 2007, East finished 17th in a $1,500 NLH event and also cashed in the 2006 Ladies Championship.

Link Dump

FTPDoug returns to TwoPlusTwo – The infamous FTPDoug made his triumphant 2+2 return after taking his leave following the Full Tilt disaster. He is back and answering questions about the FTP relaunch after the PokerStars buyout. He also settles the question of whether it was actually Michele Clayborne posting as FTPDoug (told ya so).

Matt Marafioti Online Hacking Allegations – Marafioti is clearly off his rocker, that’s no big secret. But if these allegations of account hacking turn out to be true then he’s a blatant, delusional thief who is off his rocker.

Cantor Gaming launches Wi-Fi sports wagering in Nevada – And just like that, you can legally place a sports bet online in Nevada as long as you have a Cantor Gaming account and the ability to turn on your Wi-Fi adapter.

The British Poker Awards – Branded “the UK’s official poker awards” so it must be true. Award ceremonies for poker still seem a little odd because the ultimate award is cash in the hand and maybe a bracelet on the wrist. Now get off my lawn.

Best Poker Player Party ever? – I don’t know about the best party ever, I barely remember a PokerStars party at the WSOP with Mr. Snoop Dogg. But it still looks like a blast and Savage managed to once again find himself on camera.

We just learned the NFL is backing off its long-held opposition to online gambling — removing a major obstacle from HR 2267’s path to becoming law.

It was the King-Meeks amendment that assured the league the bill would exclude sports betting. One key supporters of this measure was John Campbell, a decidedly right-wing Republican from California who, incidentally, wrote the amendment that calls for a “blacklist” of “unlawful internet gambling enterprises”.

Photo special for Pokerati © James Berglie / BePhotography

Rep. John Campbell supports the rights of Americans to gamble online, so long as they can’t bet on football.

The effort to remove sports betting gives insight into the process of converting undecideds into supporters, as seen in the video below. Just a week earlier, Campbell had told the House Financial Services Committee, “You know I don’t gamble, and I don’t particularly like it; but freedom is not about legislating what I like to do and making illegal what I don’t.”

But as it became clear during markup that the NFL would be getting what they wanted and sports bettors would not, Barney Frank, who believes all forms of online gambling deserve the consumer protections HR 2267 advocates, couldn’t resist posing a somewhat humorous, if not uncomfortable question to his colleague from across the aisle:

With both the Campbell and King-Meeks amendments passing by voice vote, later that day Campbell signed on as the 70th cosponsor (and fourth Republican) willing to align themselves with online gambling.

The NFL has officially retracted their opposition to HR 2267, removing a strong opponent to online gambling from the current political game.

According to PokerNews, an NFL representative cites the King-Meeks amendment to HR 2267 as reason for the reversal: “We don’t oppose it since it now includes the language we had hoped for. The amended language adequately addressed our specific concern. We are pleased with the outcome.”

The amendment of note, introduced by HR 2267 co-sponsor Peter King (R-NY) excludes sports-betting from potentially regulated internet gambling. Rep. John Campbell (R-CA), the bill’s newest co-sponsor, also gave support to this amendment.

This (long) weekend’s #WPBT festivities are coming to a close … and as I type the poker bloggers are gathered for Sunday football at Lagasse’s Stadium in the Palazzo. There some of them are experiencing, for the first time, what many say is the future of gambling: handheld, semi-portable real-money action.

A new-ish device, “eDeck”, lets you gamble Blackberry/iPhone-style theoretically from anywhere, but currently within the confines of three Las Vegas casinos — the Venetian, Palazzo, and M Resort. Global Gaming Business Magazine named it Best Table Game Product or Innovation for 2009. And none other than Doyle Brunson has been pimping it:

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It’s pretty safe to assume that Darvin Moon didn’t get the memo that complementary promotion of the NFL goes against the ways of the pay-for-play online sites. However, it is not clear if his donning of attire for his local card room came at a cost. Check it out … though I didn’t see this yesterday, he’s clearly getting some good logo placement for the Wheeling Island Casino in Wheeling, West Virginia:

click for more Darvin

We’ll see if we can’t find out what sorta deal is in place there if any, or if this is just a friendly gesture to the card room where he won his seat into the WSOP. Regardless though, it does make you wonder why sponsorships from the likes of The Venetian, Caesar’s, Bellagio, and other B&M card rooms have yet to come in play.

Beyond being the alligator on Darvin Moon’s Izod, here’s what we do know about the place, via the ThePokerAtlas:

Great Room
Wheeling Island
Wheeling, West Virginia
by fiftyouts

Even though this room has only 20 some tables it is very nice. Great staff and friendly folks. This is a “MUST PLAY” room if you’re in the area. The casino is upscale (you might think you’re in Vegas) with good action. This is the ‘Best Kept Secret’ of West Virginia !!!

photos: IMPD for WSOP.com

The (American) football season is upon us … fantasy sports drafts and all that stuff. But more than that, some new NFL lottery tickets are hitting the 7-Elevens near you! $5 Eagles and Steelers scratch-off tickets (seen here) went on sale last week in Pennsylvania, and the New Jersey lottery will give the NFL a cut on Jets and Giants tickets sold … despite the fact that the super-duper majority of participants in this game of chance are guaranteed to lose.

UPDATE: A Dallas Cowboys scratch-off also went on sale last week.

In Massachusetts, Patriots lottery tickets are selling at a record pace, and have already awarded their first two million-dollar prizes. Wanna be a little disgusted by one of the poker industry’s biggest political opponents … check out the familiar pitch the NFL itself is using in promoting their rake game:

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We cover industry news from France to the United States, as professional sports leagues & governments have a dramatic affect on gambling. The NFL joining with others to sue the state of Delaware? Plus, an announcement about Bodog.

Why has the well respected online casino, Intertops, parted company with the worlds largest online gaming software provider, Microgaming? Find out why, and see what Harrah’s Entertainment and the National Football League are up to!

Semi-related to poker … was working on a post over at Soccerati (our baby brother site), about how an online gambling op (188Bet.com) has come in to buy up the jersey space on two English Premier League teams. It just seems kinda funny to me — considering that the NFL is so anti-online gambling, and the EPL is so pro. Soccer in general seems to have totally embraced the online gambling biz. Such a clear distinction between American football and European football.

In fact … check this out … you have very major teams across the pond (and a few minor ones) that have direct links and betting pages on their official sites. The Spurs, for example, are supposedly working with their sponsor Mansion to develop a Tottenham skin, and already host weekly freerolls for game tickets.

The people making money off Peyton Manning jerseys hate online poker; meanwhile the other kind of football teams proudly support it — or are being supported by it.

Now you know I’m not much of a boycotter — really, I generally think they’re stupid and ineffective — but it does occur to irk me how much “free advertising” poker players give NFL teams by wearing their jerseys. Considering that American football gives nothing back to poker, and in fact subtracts from it … maybe it might be time for poker players to hang up their lucky Tony Romo jerseys, ya know? Just sayin’ … all it takes is watching a little soccer to realize how wearing any NFL promotion at the WSOP wouldn’t be too different from wearing a Bill Frist or Jim Leach campaign button un-ironically.

The Delaware legislature passed a bill allowing sports gambling to return to the state on Tuesday. Governor, Jack Markell will be signing the legislation later this week. Delaware is one of 4 states (Oregon, Nevada and Montana being the others) that were exempt from a 1992 federal law that banned gambling on sports.

The NFL, unsurprisingly, filed a brief with the Delaware Supreme Court against the bill. Their reasoning for blocking the bill is surprising; because they state that sports betting is a game of skill, while Delaware state law states that only games of chance are allowed. Could they be unknowingly opening the door to allow all sorts of gambling on games of skill, such as poker?