Often, folks in the media accept whatever number’s thrown at them when gambling’s concerned. If someone says a study claims that governments will make billions a year legalizing online gambling, it’s accepted without question.
But Josh McMahon of New Jersey News Room actually did some research when it comes to one net gaming proposal:
What I do object to, however, is the ballooning of expectations.Lesniak and others claim New Jersey can collect about $100 million a year from sports betting but their numbers don't add up.I can't follow his math. I challenged him on this last year but never heard from him. He didn't produce the numbers.Here's why I'm skeptical. Last year all 266 Nevada casinos “won” a total of $136.3 million from sports betting. That's what the casinos had after they paid off the winners.
It’s good to see people actually look at the numbers to see if they make sense.
One quibble–in the article, McMahon claims that Nevada casinos had $11.5 billion in gross gaming revenue “last year.” The actual total is $10.3 billion for 2009, and $11.6 billion for 2008. I don’t usually go out of my way to correct other people, but since we’re talking numbers and accuracy, I figure it’s fair play. Although to be fair to McMahon, the sports betting total for 2008 was also about $136 million, so it would be easy to confuse the two years.