Delawareonline – A federal judge today cleared the way for Delaware to start sports betting — on schedule — in September.Chief District Judge Gregory M. Sleet denied an emergency request from the professional sports leagues and NCAA to stop the state from launching sports books at the state’s three racinos while a lawsuit challenging their legality moves forward to a December trial. Kenneth J. Nachbar, the attorney representing the four major sports leagues and the National Collegiate Athletic Association, said they were disappointed with the ruling and will be considering their legal options. At the public portion of today’s scheduling meeting with attorneys, Sleet said the sports leagues had to prove one of three things for him to act, and they failed at all three. First, Sleet said the leagues did not show they were likely to prevail at trial. He later added that it was also not clear at this point if Delaware would prevail at trial. Second, Sleet said the leagues failed to show there would be irreparable harm to professional and college sports if action was not taken now. Sleet said the sports leagues position was “ironic” given that — as attorneys for Delaware noted — a number of sports teams now have sponsorship deals with casinos and several owners of sports teams also own gambling establishments. Third, Sleet said the sports teams failed to show the defendant would not be irreparably harmed by the injunction. The judge said there was at least a potential harm to Delaware — and the public in general — in that Delaware is counting on millions in revenue from sports betting to balance its budget.

I despise hypocrisy. It’s one of my biggest pet peeves in life. And this is the height of hypocrisy. Because make no mistake about it. Professional Sports leagues and the NCAA love sports gambling. They love it! And why shouldn’t they? It is the single most important factor in the success of American sports today especially the NFL. Anybody who thinks otherwise just has their head in the sand. So why are they acting so righteous here and fighting this law? There has to be something we don’t know. AKA – They think this will hurt their bottom-line or they have a deal with Vegas or something. But they’re certainly not against it on moral grounds I can tell you that much. In fact if the Government said they were outlawing all sports gambling in the country and aggressively cracking down on bookies the leagues would be the first ones to fight this tooth and nail. So if they want to block sports gambling in Delaware that’s cool, but just don’t act like the integrity of the game is the reason why. Just like with everything else it’s all about money even though I can’t figure out how yet.