Published: December 1, 2019

PGA Tour goes all in on legalized gambling

Professional golf was ripe for gambling opportunities, and starting in 2020, betting will be available with the PGA Tour’s use of its ShotLink system

Stand on any par-3 hole on the PGA Tour and you’re bound to hear the chatter.

A handful of friends gathered in their folding chairs around the green are conducting their “draft.” They take turns choosing which golfer will make a better score on the hole, or whose approach will be closer to the flag.

As shots are played, little cheers and groans are heard. Single dollar bills are grudgingly sacrificed and happily received. Then it starts all over again with the very next group.

In very short order that practice among buddies is going to seem as quaint as sitting at the kitchen table playing for Monopoly money.

Starting sometime early in 2020, the public will have the ability to play the par-3 game and make many other wagers on PGA Tour competition in U.S. states that have legal gambling.

Who will hit the longest drive on a particular hole? Which players in the group will make birdie? Who’ll save par from the greenside bunker?

The possibilities seem almost endless. In a normal PGA Tour event of 144 players, there are more than 30,000 shots executed over the week. That’s quite a contrast to who’s going to score the next goal in a soccer game.

“Each one of those is potentially an in-play betting opportunity,” Andy Levinson, PGA Tour senior vice president of tournament administration, said in a telephone interview. “Golf is a tremendous untapped resource for sports bettors. The betting opportunities in a round of golf far exceed any other sports.”

Once an entity like many others that held organized gambling at arm’s length — though for decades its players have regularly bet in practice-round matches among themselves — the PGA Tour is going all in on gambling.

After the Supreme Court in May 2018 struck down a 1992 federal law that prohibited states from authorizing sports betting, the tour moved at a speed not usually seen in golf.

It already had rolled out an integrity program with its players in January 2018 that sought to educate them on the potential pitfalls in gambling. Ten months later, the tour signed an agreement with IMG Arena for the London-based company to be the official data distributor for media and betting purposes of its proprietary ShotLink system. It is IMG Arena’s job to work with legal betting agencies on the structure of the betting.

The original deal with IMG Arena was specific to the international marketplace, but Levinson said an updated contract negotiated in the past several months now has IMG Arena working to enable betting on the tour in the U.S. in 2020.

Levinson wasn’t able to speak to what the specifics of the initial betting propositions will be, but expect to see an early emphasis on par-3 holes, where the tour is planning to add exclusive live video coverage for betting purposes.

There are many possibilities for the future, including separate video feeds specific to gambling, such as odds and propositions scrolling across the screen.

“I think the PGA Tour saw the writing on the wall,” said James Murphy, a veteran oddsmaker, author and consultant with Casinoinsider.com. “They saw that this was going to be a reality, and they could either stick their heads in the sand and pretend it didn’t exist, or find a way to leverage it.”

As it was, with its ShotLink system that records every stroke of play, the tour was sitting on a gold mine of possible betting opportunities and historical references for handicapping.

“The potential is huge,” Murphy said. “Golf is a big thing worldwide, but it’s really grown here in North America. In the Nevada market, after football and basketball, there may be more wagering on golf than on anything else. It’s become a really big deal.”

In October, PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan gave an exclusive interview to Agence France-Presse while at a tournament in Asia, and some outlets erroneously reported that Monahan said there would be on-site betting at tour events.

Levinson said the “on-site” aspect to Monahan’s comments were in reference to live online betting, and not to brick-and-mortar stations at tournaments.

Currently, there are seven U.S. states in which online betting is legal, but many more are considering legislation to allow it. In June, California lawmakers proposed a ballot measure that would legalize betting in the state and the opportunity to vote on it could come as soon as November 2020.

The PGA Tour, along with the NBA and Major League Baseball, has been out front in working to legalize gambling, and Levinson said he has been a part of meetings with state lawmakers across the country.

“We felt that as a sports organization that places a significant emphasis on integrity, we needed to get involved in the conversation,” Levinson said. “We’re engaging in the legislative process to make sure that the interest and concerns of sports leagues are being considered when these laws are created, and not just in the interest of the sports betting operator.”

With the PGA Tour’s efforts to embrace gambling come enormous challenges.

They start with the tour’s ShotLink system, which has been operated by tournament volunteers since its inception. The volunteers man stations at various points on the course with cameras on tripods. When a ball lands, they shoot it and measurements are taken.

Accuracy has always been important to the tour, but now it will be of utmost concern, as well as speed, considering the thousands of dollars that could change hands depending on the results. Levinson said a “ShotLink 2.0” has been developed and that there will be more devices to measure each shot.

“We’ve added a number of redundancies,” Levinson said. “There won’t be just one individual collecting a piece of information.”

Marty Gorsich, the new CEO and tournament director of the Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines, said of his 1,100 volunteers for the event, 60 have been dedicated to ShotLink in the past. The tour asked him to up that to 90 for the coming year.

Gorsich said his staff will look for volunteers who are comfortable with technology and intrigued by data collecting.

“Some people don’t want to sit in a chair and check wristbands,” Gorisch said. “It’s takes a different type of person to do this. It’s a pretty intriguing committee, assuming expectations are within reason.”

Another concern that Gorsich is beginning to hear from those who are close to the players is what fan behavior might be like. With seemingly more hospitality placed on holes on tour than ever before, there is concern that cheering (or booing) could get more out of hand if there is money on the line.

Consider betting on which player in the group will hit the longest drive or who will make a birdie. Might a fan shout out in a player’s backswing if he bet on another guy?

“There are positives and potential challenges to it,” Gorsich said. “The positives are energy and interest, and broadening the appeal of the sport. But we also want to maintain our respect for the game. I don’t want to see anything happen that is at the expense of the game of golf.”

Noting that he previously worked in another traditional sport, baseball, as an executive with the San Diego Padres, Gorsich said the efforts the tour is making with gambling are impressive.

“This (gambling) is a big move for a sport that often was the last to the party on certain topics,” Gorsich said. “Phones on site, for instance, or a place on social media.”

Murphy contends that the demographics of golf are exactly what make it so appealing to betting operators.

“There is the perception that a bunch of aging white men watch it every week,” he said. “(Gambling) is a good conduit to a younger audience and the sports betting audience. The tour wanted a way for fans to interact more with the sport, but it’s also reaching into a new market.

“I had job early on writing weekly about NASCAR races from a handicapping standpoint. I had never been interested in NASCAR. But I got to watching it and became a fan.”

https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/sports/golf/story/2019-11-30/pga-tour-gambling-online-wagering-2020

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