Oklahoma City Thunder guard Russell Westbrook, center, drives to the basket past Portland Trail Blazers guard Damian Lillard, right, and center Enes Kanter, left, during Game 5 of an NBA basketball first-round playoff series on April 23, 2019.Craig Mitchelldyer | Associated Press

Newsletter: Will Evangelicals block sports betting in Iowa? - Bettors Insider, Vol. 1, No. 53 (April 24, 2019)

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Will Evangelicals block sports betting in Iowa?

Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds has a sports betting bill on her desk to sign, but the odds are 50/50 whether she will.

Reynolds isn't saying, but polling in Iowa, which has no professional sports teams, is split with a slight edge to the opposition. Additionally, religious conservatives in Iowa are strongly opposed and that group has the governor's ear.

Personally, we find that ironic. No knock on religion, but it's based on faith and isn't faith the ultimate bet?

BetStars fined for taking NJ college bets

The BetStars sportsbook in New Jersey was hit with a $10,000 fine, the largest ever, for taking more than 200 bets on college basketball games involving teams from New Jersey.

That's a no-no. It's against the law in New Jersey to take bets on games involving New Jersey colleges.

The bulk of those wagers were made in November on a Rutgers v Eastern Michigan contest, but a few also came in on the Dec. 31 Penn v Monmouth game. Go Quakers!

BetStars, a subsidiary of PokerStars, said it was due to a glitch in transferring their international odds to their New Jersey site. We're inclined to believe them. Who's going to risk a gaming violation to take bets on those two games.

More here.

NBA fantasy value of the night

@DraftKings on Twitter

Hard to believe Damian Lillard could finish second to anyone last night.

Because you can bet on anything

@OddsShark on Twitter

If you want to see a crazy number of "Game of Thrones" prop bets, go here. We're guessing that producers David Benioff and D.B. Weiss could make a lot of here.

Bettor Bit

@DarrenRovell on Twitter

Today's Schedule

Overnight - Neal Abrams picks for today's matches at the Barcelona Open and and overview of the Hungarian Open.
Overnight - How we fared on Tuesday
10 am - Boop Single Digits (BoopStats for the digital attention span) (Single Digits will also give you an early peek at Boop's Quickie Quiz, which posts at noon on Twitter @BoopStats.)
10 am - Sean Miller's soccer picks.
11 am - Andrew Albert's baseball picks.
11 am - Chris Garrity's horse racing picks for Keeneland.
11 am - Craig Dietel's NHL Playoffs picks.
Afternoon - Greg Frank's NBA Playoff picks. The Swish Analytics Deep Dive Game of the Day.
6 pm - Boop's Philly Props.

Tuesday Results + Weekend Thoroughbred Results

Let's start with the humans: The nice weather brought out some better betting. Thank goodness. Sean Miller got back to his winning ways going 4-0-3 in European soccer. Craig Dietel went 2-0 on NHL playoff games. Neal Abrams went 5-2, picking clay matches in Barcelona and Budapest. And with his Philly Props, Bob Vetrone bet on the Sixers coming out strong and was well rewarded.

On the thoroughbred side our handicappers had a so-so past few days. The key to their success seems to be whether I decide to take their advice. In the races I don't bet, their picks either win or fight to win. On the races I do bet, the horses, I swear, try to learn to moonwalk.

On Saturday, Mick McMudder had winners in two races at Laurel Park and picked the winner, exacta and trifecta in the 8th at Aqueduct. Monday brought only one winner at Parx and one at Laurel. Tuesday, he got shut out and that doesn't happen often. RT won the Sunday 5th race at Woodbine and just missed a Saturday trifecta and got 3 of 5 legs right in the cross-country Pick 5. On Saturday, Chris Garrity had only one winner, at Santa Anita, but he paid $156 on his $20 bet. Yesterday he had a decent-paying winner at Indiana Grand.

We'll try to do better today.

Good luck at the tables, windows, kiosks and apps.