As Massachusetts lawmakers weigh whether to allow sports betting, another New England state has jumped in with two feet. Rhode Island legalized sports wagering last year, and just weeks ago launched their new Sportsbook Rhode Island mobile app that allows people to bet on sports from their phone.
News of that new app got me wondering not only how it works, but also what a football Sunday might be like in the Ocean State, where betting is legal.
I’ve been a football fan my entire life, but I’ve never bet on a game. To do that with Rhode Island’s new app, you have to first show your ID in person at one of the state’s two casinos. You also need to be in the state when you place a bet.
This is how I found myself navigating my way through a well-populated jungle of slot machines at Twin River Casino in Lincoln on a Sunday afternoon. It took about five minutes to find the window where I needed to show my ID, five minutes at the window getting processed, and another five minutes to link my bank account in the app.
By the time I had everything in place, the early football games had started and betting on them was closed. So I popped into Twin River’s in-casino sports bar to check out the scene. That's where I met Dylan Parcaro, a student at UMass Boston, who drove down from Boston with his cousin Donnie and their friend Paul DeAngelis.
"I enjoy coming down here," he said. "But I really want it to be legal in Massachusetts so we can just do it from wherever, whenever."
"If Encore [Casino] had it, Sundays would be crazy," added DeAngelis.
Parcaro and his crew were not the only Bay Staters here. In fact, nearly all of the two dozen or so people I spoke with were from Massachusetts. They ranged from first timers to serious regulars, like Somerville’s Mike Shehadi, who was darting between TVs, clutching a heavily marked up notebook.
"I got $220 on Houston in the under," he said, listing a litany of the bets he'd made that day. "$220 on Washington teased with the over. $550 on New England teased with Kansas City."
Not surprisingly, the new mobile app wasn’t getting much use at the casino. So to see if people were in fact using it, I headed out to a football fan’s natural Sunday habitat: The local sports bar.
At Snookers in Providence, betters were not hard to come by. Alfonso Fabrizio had money on a couple of games. He knows there’s a new app, but he has a tradition with his brother. They get breakfast every Sunday morning, then head to Twin River to place their bets.
"I’m so sick of dealing online," he said. "My whole business runs through email. I try to get away from it when I can."
Fabrizio said he never bets serious money. But others here sang a different tune. Rhode Island resident Rito Teixeira said he bets on every single NFL game, every week. When I asked if it was high-stakes betting or just entertainment dollars, he replied, "Go big or go home."
Why does he bet on each game?
"For the love of the game," he said. "I love football, so why not make money on it?"
But not everyone here was aboard the betting train.
"Every week before football, I’ve thought of downloading the app. ... I just haven't pulled the trigger," said Michael Macedo of Rhode Island. "I don’t wanna get hooked on the whole gambling and betting money. ... I’ve seen it happen. I have friends who have gambling problems."
As the later games neared their start, I made my way to Ladder 133 Sports Bar in Providence, where it was time for me to put my own money on the line. The app offers a panoply of options — from proposition bets — like who would score first — to over/under bets, to straight point spread bets. And I wasn’t the only one firing up the app at this bar.
"It’s almost 4 o’clock, so for the 4 o'clock games I'll start putting my bets in," said Rhode Island resident Saorith Seng. "And I don't have to go nowhere, ya know?"
Seng said he has quickly become a convert to Rhode Island’s new mobile sports betting app.
"It just makes life more convenient for me," he said. "I love it."
One thing Rhode Island doesn’t offer, on the app or at the casino, is live, in-game betting — where you can place bets throughout a game on everything from the score at the end of a quarter to what the next play will be. Nearly everyone I spoke with said they want this option, including casual betters like Dylan Parcaro.
"This is good enough, he said. "I like it. But it would be a game changer if we could have actually have live betting."
That sentiment is echoed by high rollers like Teixeira, who described his experience with in-game betting in Las Vegas.
"Your heart pumps like 100 miles an hour," he said.
As for my own adventure, the game I bet on came down to one final play that would make or break me. And I quickly learned that you don’t have to be live betting in Las Vegas to feel that heart pumping rush when you have money on the line. At least the first time.
