posting here Dennis Drazin knows his way around a racetrack. He grew up in Rumson, New Jersey, along the shore, and spent his fair share of days hanging around Monmouth Park, an idyllic stretch of emerald green, Thoroughbred racetrack that turns every wide-eyed kid who sees it into a fan for life. It hooks them before they know any better, before they understand that the green on the track is truly the only color of that shade doing any growing at all. The horse racing business has been dying for decades, slowly and surely. But that didn't stop Drazin, who graduated from law school in the mid-1970s, from eventually giving the business a go. He became an owner, a breeder, he lobbied for the state's thoroughbred association and, this past May, he became the new boss for his old haunt, Monmouth Park. Drazin does not bet on sports. "I have a law license," he says. "I don't do anything that is illegal." But, before the year is over, he will become the focal point for the next phase in the battle to legalize sports betting nationwide. To recap, for those of you who have been ignoring the column for the past few years: In 1993, Congress passed the Professional Amateur Sports Protection Act (PASPA). The bill, spearheaded by New Jersey senator and NBA Hall of Famer, Bill Bradley, banned sports betting nationwide. The exceptions were Nevada, Delaware, Montana and Oregon, states that had pre-existing sports betting laws on the books. Every other state was too late to the counter. For a long time, none of them cared. States were too busy getting fat and happy off of lottery revenue and newly built casino revenue. Over a 20-year span, beginning in 1990, the number of states with some form of non-lottery gaming revenue jumped from two handfuls to nearly every one of them in the union. Then, in 2008, with the economy cratering like a good run gone bad, New Jersey realized Atlantic City's profits were in the tank because every state surrounding it had some form of casino gaming. A New Jersey state senator, Ray Lesniak, sued the federal government to have PASPA overturned. For a few years, the case languished. But this past winter, New Jersey's bombastic governor, Chris Christie, put his support behind the lawsuit. Meanwhile, the voters in New Jersey passed a referendum saying they wanted sports betting in the state. They can't have it, at least not until PASPA is repealed, but Christie used the full-throated power of his pulpit and issued a challenge to the federal government: We're going to have sports betting in New Jersey this football season. If you don't like it, come and stop us. This is where Drazin comes in. Most casinos on the Atlantic City boardwalk have gaming licenses in other states, so they won't risk losing them by violating a federal law and opening a sports book. And further up the Garden State Parkway, the Meadowlands racetrack is too close to MetLife Stadium, home of the Jets and Giants. Those folks don't want to pick a fight with the anti-gambling NFL. But all Drazin has is a pretty racetrack and a dying sport. When Christie said let's have at it, it was easy for Drazin to say, I'm in. "It appears I am the only one willing to do it," he says. "But we need revenue to be competitive with other states that have casinos. And this is an opportunity. The governor has given us ability to run with the ball." Or, at the very least, be his lead blocker. Because, the truth is, for all of Christie's tough talk and Drazin's willingness to back it up, this is still Jersey: Nothing happens without a fight. (I say that with love and pride -- and as someone who shared bar space with Snooki the night before I sadly moved out of the state last summer.) Currently, regulations regarding sports betting in the state have been drafted and are going through a public comment period, in which people can weigh in with dissenting opinions until August 31. If there are no comments -- meaning there is no need to re-examine the regulations and then repost them, giving people another commenting period -- the earliest Drazin could have a sports book running would be November 1. "The plan would be to take out our license and open up for business," he says. Drazin, who has a space at the track already picked out for his sports book, expects it to cost Monmouth about a million bucks to get up and running. But, he adds, "We expect a court battle before we ever get that far." A few years ago, Delaware, which allowed parlay-style betting on the NFL for one season in the mid-1970s, reintroduced sports betting. State lawmakers wanted the full buffet of Vegas-style side bets. But the major sports leagues and the NCAA fought it, nearly until the start of the NFL season. That's when a federal court scaled back Delaware's ambitious plan, saying the state could not offer a style of betting any different than what it had prior to PASPA. New Jersey offers more fertile betting ground, and one with more than a few professional franchises. "We'd love it if everyone ignored us," says Drazin. "But that is unlikely." Believe it or not, that is good news, because what happens over the next few months will be the tipping point for the future of sports betting. There will be injunctions to stop Monmouth Park. There will be arguments in court about the legality of PASPA. There will be judges handing down opinions (and appeals no matter who wins). But, eventually, there will be action. And that's all every bettor wants. Jeff Fisher has been around a long time. And guys who are coaching in the NFL for that long tend to leave behind patterns. He likes to rely on the run and good defense. He isn't going to let his quarterback get too creative. He appreciates the importance of a mustache that is well-groomed and not at all grown in irony. Bettors know all about Fisher's patterns, too. Especially during the preseason. You see, no one matters more when it comes to preseason betting than coaches, which is the complete antithesis of the regular season. Chuck Noll used to say that he did all of his work Monday through Saturday. Come Sunday, it was the players' final exam. He was just watching like the rest of us (which explains why he would get so mad and grab Terry Bradshaw by the jersey; he was just a really angry fan.). But during the preseason, coaches -- and scrubs who blow your under play in the fourth quarter with miracle, career-starting touchdowns -- rule. This is their time to tinker with lineups, schemes and combos in a glorified practice in which fans paid top dollar for parking, tickets and a hand-cut, organic, bacon-wrapped hot dog slathered in basil mayo and gently placed in a steaming, buttery brioche bun. Before a game, most coaches will share with the media what their plans for their high-priced practices are. They'll offer up a number of snaps for starters, name the QB rotation, maybe reveal what kind of packages they are going to work on. And most coaches stick to those plans. But some, like Fisher, often go rogue. "He likes to say he's giving his guys 10 snaps but they'll go 20, stuff like that," says Teddy Covers. Years ago, betting preseason football was like betting the WNBA today: Only professionals were in the space. Bookmakers didn't know what they were doing and bettors who -- all together now -- did a little work reading up on coaches' preseason strategies built up a nice cushion heading into the regular season. Then the NFL got so damn popular even preseason games started drawing action. These days, as William Hill's Dan Shapiro emailed me, "we'll do much more on an NFL preseason game than a regular season baseball game. More even than a marquee regular season MLB game." Because the lines are tighter, bettors have to develop different strategies, such as understanding coaching tendencies or focusing on first-half lines. "The other factor in preseason games, other than coaches, is luck. Too many variables in the fourth quarter to screw with your bets." As the market has become saturated, he also spends a lot more time reacting to line moves, waiting until closer to game time and betting against the public move, a strategy that for a long time didn't exist in NFL preseasons. There are no opinions in preseason. Winning is only about information you can glean from paying very close attention. "It's a week-by-week factor," Covers says. "It requires legwork and knowing that a coach's mentality changes week to week. Veteran coaches who have been there for a while, you see a difference in strategy, philosophy and execution as the preseason progresses." Earlier this week I did a podcast with Dylan Evans, the author of "Risk Intelligence: How to Live With Uncertainty." Evans is a smart dude with a doctorate in philosophy from the London School of Economics. The basic premise of the book is pinpointing the factors that make some people good at quickly surmising what the probability of something happening is, like the Bears covering a seven-point spread against the Vikings. The people who do it most quickly and most accurately have a high-risk intelligence. Naturally, Evans interviewed many gamblers for his book, since those who make a living betting are predisposed to having a naturally high-risk intelligence. But what he found wasn't that they just turned it on whenever they felt like it. They worked at it. For years, they would look at a match or a horse race and place a probability on who was going to win. They kept copious notes on games or horses they were betting, the circumstances that led to their decision-making and what the outcome was. Over time, their risk intelligence improved. It was not an innate skill, but one that could be learned. With serious, serious effort.
