Gambling News - May 2005 Edition

"Red Sox Gamble with Ads: Sponsor Promotes Online Wagering"

The Boston RedSox promoting online poker by offering play-for-fun site.

A poker tournament to be operated by Partypoker.net, universally thought of as “the world’s largest poker school”, will be aired on the RedSox-owned NESN TV network. To make sure it is kept strictly legal, the Partypoker.net site will not allow visitors to place wagers using real money. But it promotes online poker playing even by offering the “for-fun” site. .

Ignoring the current uproar about online gambling, the Boston Red Sox have signed a contract with Partypoker.com, a Gibraltar-based company that runs one of the world’s top offshore Internet casinos. Partypoker.com also operates a “just for fun” poker Website called Partypoker.net which is a major Red Sox advertiser. Partypoker.net was the primary sponsor of the Red Sox spring training and is currently sponsoring a poker tournament between Red Sox and Yankee fans.

There are many critics of the proposed tournament between the Boston Red Sox and the Partypoker company who say that the whole idea is in poor taste because people admire the Red Sox business entity and by associating the Red Sox name with Internet gambling, it legitimizes an industry that is harmful to the Bay State. “To have an entity such as the Red Sox enter into a contractual agreement with an Internet gambling company is troubling and raises eyebrows,” said a board member of the National Coalition Against Gambling Expansion (NCAGE), Carey Theil. “It is something they shouldn’t be doing”.

Rep. David Flynn (D-Bridgewater) agrees and is drafting a bill to try and stop the Bay State gamblers from taking their gambling hobby online. Flynn contends that online gambling is unregulated and hurts the state’s legal gaming industry and siphons off tax dollars. Commenting further on the Red Sox decision to hook up with online gambling industry, Flynn said that he was disappointed in what they are doing. “We’re trying to save jobs and save an industry and here’s a business we all admire and all they’re doing is fueling the fire”, Flynn added.

There have been government attempts at the federal level to prevent people from gambling going online, but results show that they have done little to stem the growing popularity of Internet gambling. Also, many states, such as the Bay State, don’t have state laws that formally prohibit online gambling. Efforts such as blocking credit card companies from doing business with online companies and attempts to prosecute operators of online casinos using the 1960s Wire Act have gone nowhere.”

Tom Grey, a spokesman for NCAGE, also thinks that gambling and professional sports shouldn’t mix. “You’ve got Pete Rose. Sports have always tried to keep its distance from gambling. But here with the Red Sox, it’s just a money maker”.

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