Quoth The Ravens, Jackpot? Club The Latest In Lotto Tix Talks

Ravens Logo May Be Placed On Maryland Scratch-Off Tickets For First Time

CAN'T HAVE IT BOTH WAYS: SI.com's Peter King wrote, "It's ludicrous the NFL draws such a hard line against gambling in a state -- like it is in Delaware right now -- and at the same time the league is making deals with states around Delaware to put team logos on lottery tickets. I know one form of gambling is illegal (in 49 states) and the other is legal countrywide. But the rush to put your helmet on an instant-lottery game, as the Patriots did last week, quite literally on the same day the league had lawyers in Delaware arguing against sports gambling is somewhere between ridiculously ill-timed and totally disingenuous" (SI.com, 5/25). CBSSPORTS.com's Ray Ratto wrote under the header, "Lotto Luck Trying To Get NFL To Admit Hypocrisy." The NFL "might try to fight the next state that tries" to legalize sports betting, but if the league "couldn't break down Delaware, what chance does it have against a state you can find on a map?" The NFL, "faced with defeat," did the "only thing enterprising money-grubbers can do -- it jumped in, declared victory, and started cutting deals with the popular regressive tax known as the state lottery." The league "can no longer make a convincing argument against gambling that the state profits by, except the argument that they should be the only ones to profit from gambling on their sport" (CBSSPORTS.com, 5/25). The AP's Tim Dahlberg wrote, "Interesting that the NFL has no moral qualms about making money off people who have no clue about how high the odds are stacked against them. But it does have issues with people betting $20 on the outcome of one of its games when they have a decent likelihood of winning the bet" (AP, 5/23).

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