Fans line up to place bets on first day of legal sports gambling in Ohio

The excitement inside MGM Northfield Park racino was primed like a champagne bottle ready to pop at midnight on New Year’s Eve.

But the casino’s operator hadn’t planned anything special to bring in the new year. No balloons. No air horns. No dancers. No singers.

At the bar, patrons jubilantly counted down the last seconds of 2022. Glued to a giant wall of televisions behind them, football fans cheered the final minutes of the Ohio State Buckeyes semifinal national championship game against Georgia. The yelling could be heard outside the casino’s main entrance, said MGM spokesman Josh Lewis, who was outside overseeing some last-minute repairs to a few burned-out holiday lights.

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Then the ball dropped. The Buckeyes lost. And a long line formed before five tellers who would take the casino’s first ever sporting bets — with gambling on athletic events officially legal as of the first minute of 2023.

“Today marks a monumental day of growth for both BetMGM and the sports betting industry,” BetMGM CEO Adam Greenblatt said in a Sunday morning statement. “Ohio is home to thousands of passionate sports fans, who now have the opportunity to enjoy first-hand the excitement and benefits of wagering with BetMGM.”

'We never really had this,' Ohio fan says of sports betting

Before the Ohio legislature entertained a bill to legalize sports betting, MGM Northfield placed an early bet at the end of 2021 with the construction of a floor-to-ceiling wall of television screens and four rows of leather seats surrounded by high-top tables and cushioned benches.

At the back of the casino through the labyrinth of eye-popping and ear-catching slot machines, sports fans now enter a new sport-betting area by passing under a score ticker. The ticker wraps from five ticket windows to the left, which are backlit by a towering list of constantly updating odds and betting opportunities, and a bar and restaurant to the right, which is as close to the action as a baseball pitcher is to home plate.

Off to the side, two rows of kiosks form a hallway of seemingly endless ways to bet on more than the outcome of just about any game. MGM employees with tablets walk around helping guests sign up for the casino’s mobile sports betting app.

The BetMGM Sportsbook & Lounge opened this fall as football season kicked off, Lewis said. Every Sunday since has drawn “typically a nice, decent crowd,” he added, but nothing like the volume of people who lingered all day Sunday.

Empty seats were still hard to find by the time the Washington Commanders won the coin toss, which some people bet on, and the Cleveland Browns ended their opening drive with a punt, which some people bet on. The casino granted betting customers a “gimme” win if the Browns completed a 1-yard pass.

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Warehouse worker Will Brown of Garfield Heights sported his Browns hat. He and his girlfriend, Adrienne Williams, gave their information to an MGM employee who signed them up for the app to track their bets on their phones.

The couple would otherwise have no business being in a casino on a Sunday afternoon.

“We never really had this, though,” Brown said, pulling out a stack of bets he printed at a kiosk when the line at the teller windows was too long.

Brown made some basic bets on Cleveland, Carolina and New Orleans winning their games. He made similar bets online with DraftKings and FanDuel.

“They’re all winning right now,” Brown said with an air of optimism and a lot of time left to play in each of the Sunday matchups.

Along with fortune for some, the wall of simultaneously cast football games shined on Brown and 100 other faces. Gamblers sat where they could and stood when they couldn’t find a seat.

At a round high-top with domestic beer cans and an energy drink, Nigel Kelley and his buddies leaned forward as Browns running back Nick Chubb moved the Browns 50 yards on back-to-back carries late in the first quarter. The Browns kicked a field goal but accepted half the distance to the goal on a Washington penalty.

That was Kelley’s chance for Chubb to score.

The 33-year-old construction worker from Macedonia had picked Chubb and four other players from across the league. If each standout offensive player scored a touchdown, the $50 credit MGM granted Kelley for downloading the casino’s sports betting app would pay out $3,200, Kelley said.

But Chubb didn’t score that drive. The Browns turned over the ball on downs as a quarterback keeper inside the 5-yard line came up short.

Kelley smiled and settled for another beer. “Everything in moderation,” he said.

Chubb, who tied quarterback Jacoby Brissett for the most Browns touchdowns heading into week 17, never did touch the end zone.

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Hedging their bets

Several betters, like Kelley, tapped promotional offers from multiple online sports-betting websites, including DraftKings and FanDuel. For months leading up to the inaugural day of sports betting in Ohio, the companies had chased customers in the Buckeye State with advertisements on nearly every digital platform, with some continuing to offer $200 or more in “free bets” to anyone who waited until Jan. 1 to sign up.

Most of the free bets, the gamblers explained, required cash up front. If they lost, some were given credits that had to be spent within days or by the end of January. The savviest gamblers hedged their bets and took advantage of all the promotions they could manage.

Joe George and his wife, Stephanie, perked up as they entered the casino in time to see Justin Fields score a touchdown for the Chicago Bears. Detroit was winning handily by the end of the third quarter in that game, but that didn’t matter to George. His bet only required Fields, a former Ohio State quarterback, to score the first touchdown.

The couple also had Chubb scoring first in the Browns game, which didn’t happen. With a win and a loss in their daily bets, they walked over to a row of kiosks and pulled up a long list of options and odds.

Overwhelmed and adjusting, George said he’s used to just betting on whether teams win or lose. He joked that it’s usually his wife who’s in a casino, and not usually on a Sunday when the couple are watching the Browns play.

“I think for her,” George said, sports betting “is going to make watching football on Sundays more interesting.”

“We’ll see,” Stephanie George said as the couple huddled over the glowing kiosk screen with rows of unusual betting plays. “Let’s try this out.”

Reach reporter Doug Livingston at dlivingston@thebeaconjournal.com or 330-996-3792.

Gambling problem?

For Ohioans facing an addiction to gambling, specialists at the Ohio Problem Gambling Helpline are available toll-free at 800-589-9966. For information on how to blacklist yourself from sports and other forms of gambling or to join Gamblers Anonymous, visit https://pgnohio.org/resources/.

This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: MGM Northfield Park fans bet big on legalized Ohio sports gambling