Keith Sargeant | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com
“We’ve got a team of bookmakers who, this is their job, this is what they do,’’ Joe Asher, William Hill’s chief executive officer, told NJ Advance Media on Thursday a
s sports betting became legalized.“Every day we’ll have hundreds and hundreds of betting propositions up on the board and customers get to come in and bet on what they find interesting to them. Today, it’s baseball and World Cup (soccer) kicks off. So that’s what the focus is on today, but a couple of months from now it’s going to be completely insane at the start of football season.’’
Keith Sargeant | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com
Asher is right about one thing: At Monmouth Park, there were hundreds of wagers available Thursday morning.And the funny thing is, that's only a small sampling of what's to come, according to Asher."I can’t even imagine what the crowd is going to look like at the start of football season,'' he said. "It’s going to be unbelievable. Clearly there’s plenty of betting options available on all the sports. It’s one of the differentiators for us, as opposed to others in the market, is the depth of what we intend to bring to New Jersey.''
Video by Keith Sargeant | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com
One thing you can't bet on — yet — is general propositions. Things like political races, the Oscars and reality-TV competitions are off limits.This is a sports book, after all. But that doesn't mean by 2020 the next presidential election won't be available to wager on."That type of betting is actually pretty big in the (United Kingdom),'' Asher said. "It hasn’t come to America yet, but I think that is a not-for-now type of thing."But you never know what the future holds. This past election was a big wagering business in the UK.''At Monmouth Park, the board flashed betting odds on events such as the College World Series, UFC Fight Night 132 and the upcoming Nascar event in Iowa. You don't have to go north of the border to bet on Week 1 of the Canadian Football League. The Oceanport racetrack had that action, and it also had future betting on who will win the NBA and NHL championships in 2018-19."We’ll study all of it,'' Asher said, "and make sure we come up with a product offering that we think customers are going to want.''Here are the craziest bets Monmouth Park had to offer on the first day of legalized betting in New Jersey: