Paying big bucks for your fantasy team
October 17, 2008
In a tight economy, even a super fan might consider giving up season tickets or betting hard-earned money on a fantasy football team.
Today’s economic downturn hasn’t hurt just the average American; for some of Wall Street’s players, this probably feels worse than getting sacked by Ray Lewis. But try telling that to some of the financial world’s big-money boys who are still able to pony up the $100,000 entry fee into an elite fantasy football league where the total purse is $1 million, according to an article in The Wall Street Journal.
According to two participants and several business associates of league members, each of its 10 teams pays $100,000 to enter. The winner takes home a grand prize of $600,000, with $300,000 going to the second-place finisher and $100,000 for third place. These sums dwarf the typical pot for a fantasy football league, where each member antes up somewhere between $250 and $500 and the winner’s prize rarely exceeds $3,000.
Lest you should think these high rollers are only in it for the money, apparently the league champs have previously donated their winnings to unnamed children’s charities and Tsunami Relief Inc. All participants also give to the pet cause of one member, the New York-based Robin Hood Foundation that fights poverty.
In the same vein of US Weekly’s regular feature on stars being “just like us,” the WSJ article says the fantasy football league is just like the ones regular Americans play in, aside from the money.
There’s plenty of trash-talking, especially on Sundays, when the most active owners post comments, and occasional insults, on the league’s private message board on ESPN.com. … This season, participants say there’s been a little less chatter on the message board. “The last thing you want to do is talk about is the financial crisis,” says one owner. “But I would all bet we’re all spending a lot less time on football these days.”
So everyone needs an escape, but it’s still good to know that the financial crisis is weighing on them too. I just wonder how much time they spend reassessing their teams and trading players during the workday, while the economy continues to go down the tubes.
Isn’t it high-stakes gambling — not necessarily by these particular guys — that got us into this mess in the first place?
DANIELLE ULMAN, Business Writer
Sphere: Related ContentHoping to hit the jackpot on Friday the 13th
June 13, 2008
Correct me if I’m wrong, but gamblers tend to be a superstitious lot. They make a move based on good premonitions, they’ve got lucky numbers, a special way to roll the dice — some even have a favorite position at the poker table.
Watching the regular customers downtown Baltimore’s Newsmart buy their daily lottery tickets while reporting on today’s story about the financial state of the Maryland Lottery, lotto players aren’t much different. They’ve got their lucky numbers and regular games they play, and rarely do they rock the boat.
Based on that set-up, would you introduce a new scratch-off game on what is supposedly the unluckiest day of the year?
Well, the Maryland Lottery, thumbing its proverbial nose in the face of superstition, is doing exactly that. Today, Friday the 13th, the agency will debut its newest scratch-off, “The Maryland Zoo’s Tic Tac Wild,” at the zoo’s Zoomerang! fundraising gala tonight. With a top prize of $10,000, the $2 scratch-off will help raise awareness about the zoo, according to a press release sent this week.
Carole Everett, spokeswoman for the Maryland Lottery said in an e-mail yesterday that they “hope Friday the 13th is a lucky day for our lottery players.”
If you play the lottery — or even if you don’t — do you think this timing will make this ticket unpopular, at least for today?
LIZ FARMER, Business Writer
Sphere: Related ContentA glimpse of the preparations for Preakness
May 15, 2008
When Photographer Sarah Beck returned from Pimlico Race Course this morning and said she’d been kicked out of a trainers-only area, I knew she’d have some good footage of the celebrities — the horses that will compete Saturday.
The video below is just a warm-up to The Daily Record’s Preakness coverage. Check out our Business Friday issue tomorrow (or the TDR home page tonight) to read about businesses that use Preakness as a networking tool.
Or, maybe you’re interested in how November’s slots referendum may impact racing in the state. Either way, Andy Rosen and Liz Farmer have you covered.
JACKIE SAUTER, Web Editor
Counties want slots
April 24, 2008
Not a huge surprise, but…
The Maryland Association of Counties is calling for a “yes” vote in this fall’s referendum on whether to allow slot machines around the state. MACo has backed slots since Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. was in office, largely as a way to pay for public education improvements.
At a news conference Thursday, MACo leaders struck a tone that you’re likely to hear throughout the campaign. Essentially, advocates say we need slots to shore up the state’s finances once and for all. After all, slots are expected to bring in more than $1 billion by fiscal 2012.
Here’s what Baltimore County Executive James T. Smith Jr., who is also MACo president, had to say:
“Without the slots revenue, Maryland will be looking at creating a new budget deficit or higher taxes or significant cuts to education.”
Slots foes say it is not fair to ask people to make what they see as a distasteful choice in order to avoid a perceived outcome that is even worse.
“There can be investments made that don’t come with the incumbent cost of slots,” Scott Arceneaux, a senior adviser to Marylanders United to Stop Slots, said during a panel discussion last week. He says slots will wind up hurting Maryland by causing problem gambling.
Do you think it’s just politics? What do you think would happen if the referendum were to fail? It will surely make for some interesting reading over the next year or so.
ANDY ROSEN, Business Writer
Sphere: Related ContentLottery wins big
August 21, 2007
OK, someone needs to explain this to me. After complaining to fellow Daily Recordian and all-knowing blogger Andy Rosen, I am still in a state of confusion — nothing new if you ask those who reside in our newsroom.
The Maryland Lottery announced it has achieved record sales for the 10th consecutive year, amounting to $1.577 billion. Now that’s all well and good for the lottery — and the state, which gets $494 million in returned revenue — but how does that not fall under the “evils of gambling” so often linked to those hellacious pieces of machinery known as slots?
On top of the Pick 3, Pick 4, Mega Millions and monitor-style lottery games like Keno, Keno Bonus and Racetrax, there are the bundles and bundles of scratch-offs that clutter every gas station sales counter. Yet, the thought of slot machines at a racetrack where people are already wagering their money is somehow blasphemy.
The latest battle between good and evil involves Rosecroft Raceway and Penn National Gaming Inc. Penn, a national casino operator, is in the midst of buying Rosecroft, a harness racing track. Penn National already runs several facilities that have slots, and odds are they would like to see the Prince George’s County track be the next.
On top of the “moral” roadblock Penn National will face, Rosecroft’s nearby neighbor may be an issue. Some developers seem to think if Rosecroft did end up with sinful slots, that the National Harbor would also have to have them. Now, what would a $2 billion, 300-acre, mixed-use waterfront development along a 1.25-mile panoramic stretch of the Potomac River in Prince George’s County want to do with slot machines?
Either way, I would wager that after all the debating and protesting, the state will still have a deficit. Not that I’m a betting man.
-FRANCIS SMITH, Special Publications Assistant Editor
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