NASCAR president Steve Phelps says that the auto racing series will implement new guidelines on sports betting before the 2019 season, covering topics ranging from who is and is not allowed to place bets on races to how gambling-related sponsorships will be managed.
Phelps’ comments came during last weekend’s NASCAR playoff stop at Dover International Speedway, which is the only racetrack on the NASCAR circuit that allows sports betting on its property.
At the moment, the NASCAR rulebook only explicitly prohibits employees from betting on races, with no clear ban on wagering by drivers or other team members. However, the rulebook does prohibit “actions detrimental to racing,” which would presumably include race fixing.
Phelps said that while he was sure drivers understood what was expected of them, there was a good chance that the language would become more precise before next season.
“The way the rulebook looks today, I think the teams and the drivers understand what it looks like,” Phelps said. “I think we’ll clarify for ’19 with more specific language in it.”
Raceday Betting Arrives in Delaware
Delaware was the first state outside of Nevada to allow full-scale sports betting following the Supreme Court’s decision that overturned the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (PASPA) in May. The process was aided by the fact that Delaware was one of the few states that had some limited sports betting in place, as the state lottery already ran a program that allowed for NFL parlay betting.
Before this weekend’s race, Dover International Speedway opened an on-site betting kiosk that allowed for both straight bets on the winner as well as a variety of proposition bets.
“For ’19 we’ll have some rules that we’ll put in place,” Phelps said after Sunday’s pre-race drivers meeting. “For right now, there’ll be betting here. We’ll study and see how that goes, but I think we’ll have some rules in place for sponsorship, for what betting looks like and continue to see what happens in the landscape overall.
Will Gambling Fuel NASCAR Interest?
While NASCAR officials may want to keep a close eye on how gambling impacts their sport, there’s also plenty of hope that legalized betting will improve fan engagement for the racing series. With ratings and attendance declining, some industry insiders believe the opportunity to bet on races could be just what the sport needs to regain some momentum.
“It very well could be a shot in the arm to NASCAR and other forms of motor sports because it could add a new element of excitement,” Las Vegas Motor Speedway president Chris Powell told the Washington Post. “You could have millennials in the grandstands high-fiving because one of them placed a wager on the first stage of a race. And this is the very demographic we’re trying to reach now.”
While allowing betting on racing could help drive interest, NASCAR probably won’t see a flood of new fans betting on races every week. According to a report by the News Journal of Wilmington, only about $60,000 had been bet on NASCAR races since Delaware’s sportsbooks opened on June 5 – amounting to less than 0.2 percent of the nearly $39.8 million in sports bets taken in the state overall.