Las Vegas and Raiders Bring Sports and Betting Closer

The Oakland Raiders, who are not SBG Global.eu’s favorites to win Super Bowl LII, broke ground on the site, near the Strip, where their new Las Vegas stadium will be erected, and, barring any unforeseen event, opened in the year 2020. Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval, Raiders owner Mark Davis and NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell each, presumably for the first time in their lives (Davis even initially thought it was a guitar), grabbed a shovel – looking for all the world like three little Bill Macys – and shoveled some dirt around, after which a confused Davis may or may not have said, “now we throw a few seeds on the ground, sprinkle a little water, and voila! new stadium.”

As a matter of fact, it will take a little more than that. Something like $1.9 billion, in fact. the Raiders paid $77.5 million for the site back in May, just a few months after the Nevada legislature approved, in record time, a bill, which Sandoval duly signed into law, calling for a $750 million public contribution, that will supposedly come mostly from tourists (of the Vegas Vacation kind, one would assume), for the stadium. “Well … now it’s real, right?” Sandoval said at the groundbreaking ceremony. “This is one of the most transformative moments in the history of Las Vegas.” But hopefully it won’t transform it from Las into Los Vegas. Spanish-speaking readers get it.

But it’s all good, y’all. You have to spend money to make money. Casino industry sources say that an NFL franchise could attract 800,000 additional people to the city a year and generate $620 million in yearly economic activity. Even the Raiders? Err, that is, even the Raiders.  The NFL stated earlier this year that it’s cool with Las Vegas sportsbooks taking action on the team’s games. The state’s gambling establishments earned over $90 million on football last year, which, per research from the University of Nevada Las Vegas, was the second best football year ever for the books. So it was, quite literally, one for the books.

League owners approved the Raiders’ relocation in March, in a 31 to 1 vote. Rumours that a confused Mark David actually voted against it are unfounded. The landslide approval is meaningful because NFL executives, though not so much its players, had traditionally shied away from anything with the slightest connection to gambling. But with the Supreme Court considering a repeal to a 1992 federal law known as PASPA, it is very likely that sportsbooks will eventually be present at to casinos in east coast gambling hotspots such as New Jersey and Pennsylvania. But back to Sin City, “only in Vegas,” Goodell said, “can you turn a groundbreaking ceremony into a show.” Though with the likes of Carlos Santana and Wayne Newton in attendance, and George Lopez mc’ing, it must have looked more like Branson, Missouri. “I hope my dad would be proud,” Davis added. Well, Al Davis’s ‘just win, baby’ could easily go hand in hand with ‘Vegas, baby!’