Published: October 21, 2019

Oregon Lottery’s sports-wagering service already a winner

The Oregon Lottery debuted a new sports-wagering service this week, but Duck football fans won’t be able to put their money where their mouths are by betting on Saturday’s game against rival Washington.

That’s because the legal gambling is only for professional sports. Sports betting returned to the state with the launch of Oregon Lottery’s online sports book, “Scoreboard,” just after 4 p.m. Wednesday.

By 1 p.m. Thursday, approximately 5,200 users had successfully registered for accounts on the Oregon Lottery website or by downloading the Scoreboard app.

Those players already had made deposits to their accounts totaling approximately $190,000, according to Matthew Shelby, the Oregon Lottery public information manager.

Due to a heavy volume of traffic, some users experienced glitches with the system. Others made “operator errors” by not following the signup and deposit instructions correctly.

″(Wednesday) night and (Thursday) morning, it’s been like a Black Friday sale at Best Buy with everyone running to get in,” Shelby said. “That has slowed the performance of the system.”

Once a new account is created and verified on Scoreboard, a player is able to begin wagering. There is no minimum bet required and each account is limited to $250,000 on the app. Users can set wagering limits for themselves.

Players can bet on NFL, NBA, MLS, NWSL, MLB and NASCAR events. Wagering options included single-game, parlay and live, in-game wagers.

The betting lines are set by SBTech, a vendor hired to analyze games and set odds “in accordance with (Oregon) Lottery’s risk tolerance.”

Geolocation services ensure wagering via Scoreboard only occurs within Oregon’s state boundaries, and not on Tribal lands.

According to Oregon Lottery projections, legal sports betting will add $4.9 million to the state’s coffers in the first year and $37 million over the first three years.

The state legislature voted this year, as part of Senate Bill 1049, to dedicate the extra revenue from Scoreboard to help school districts cover Public Employees Retirement System costs.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled last year that states can decide whether to legalize sports betting. Oregon is the eighth state to develop a live sports betting app since the ruling and one of 12 states offering legal mobile sports betting via an app.

Scoreboard is Oregon’s first entry into legal online wagering with plans to add in-venue sports betting at select Oregon Lottery retail locations in 2020.

Chinook Winds, a Lincoln City casino, opened a Las Vegas-style sports book in August.

Oregon Lottery offered a sports wagering game, “Sports Action,” but the retail betting ended in 2007 after the NCAA stated that it would not allow its men’s basketball tournament to be held in states where sports betting was legal.

Shelby said Oregon Lottery would consult with Gov. Kate Brown and the leadership at the University of Oregon, Oregon State and other in-state institutions with athletic departments before considering adding wagering on college sports.

The Ducks are a 3-point favorite over the Huskies in Las Vegas.

“We made the conscious decision to stick with professional sports at launch,” Shelby said. “I’m not going to say never, but we would have to have those conversations with the governor and our institutes of higher education.

“We know there are a lot of concerns out there and we also don’t operate in a vacuum.”

According to Oregon Lottery, 1% of its revenue ($99 million) has been dedicated to funding gambling prevention and treatment services, which ranks the state second in the nation in per capita spending on problem gambling.

https://www.registerguard.com/news/20191017/lotterys-sports-wagering-service-already-winnerc

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