Canzano: Oregon's sports-wagering business booms
2025 will be a record year.
If you’re not into the German Shopping Cart Return Championships, I’m not sure we can be friends.
There are video clips circulating on social media of some middle-aged ladies aiming and pushing shopping carts on a TV show. They let the carts fly from maybe 25-30 yards away, sending them spinning toward the cart corral like parking-lot archers.
I sent it to a friend.
He shot back: “How do I bet on this?”
It turns out that this is not the sport of the future. It’s just a clip from a German TV game show called “Schlag den Star,” which has the contestants compete against celebrities in a number of odd challenges. Among them, hammering nails into a piece of wood, chopping a sausage in two, dropping a pea into a bottle from a height, and slinging their shopping carts toward the return bin.
People wager on all sorts of things. For example, you could use the Oregon Lottery’s sports-gambling partner — DraftKings — to place a bet on darts, cycling, cricket, and a bunch of other sporting activities.
You may want to bet on Mariners’ slugger Cal Raleigh to hit a home run today and get 2.5-to-1 odds. You can get final day action on The Standard Portland Classic LPGA golf event. Or wager on seven different table tennis tournaments in a variety of countries.
A futures bet on the next NBA champion?
The 2025 NFL MVP?
The sports-gambling business is booming, even though laws in the state of Oregon don’t allow wagering on college sporting events. Through the end of July of this year, the Oregon Lottery has taken $501.5 million in “turnover.” (That’s the total amount of money wagered by bettors.) The gross profit on that so far is a touch under $66 million.