CINCINNATI — A few paces behind where Ernie Lombardi forever awaits Joe Nuxhall’s pitch, a BetMGM sportsbook entices Reds fans in their last few steps before reaching Crosley Terrace.
Scattered around Great American Ball Park are perched bronzed luminaries of the eras preceding and including the vaunted Big Red Machine, among them all-time hits leader Pete Rose in a perpetual headfirst slide. That’s banned-for-life, now Hall-of-Fame-eligible-in-death-after-admitting-he-bet-on-baseball-while-the-Cincinnati-manager Pete Rose.
Not a big deal here. Never was.
And now, the tethers binding professional sports and the legal sports betting industry in the United States make both the sportsbook and the statue far less ironic. And despite its staid reputation, Cincinnati has long been a bit more accepting of making things a bit more interesting. Maybe that’s part of being a river town, where vice is the next paddle wheeler coming into port. Maybe that’s having the once-notorious den of iniquity across the Ohio River in Newport, Kentucky. Maybe that’s the trade Cincinnatians make for 4,256 and three World Series trophies. (Rose is baseball’s all-time hit leader with 4,256.)
Either way, gambling reminders are everywhere, with FanDuel and BetMGM signage ubiquitous inside Great American Ball Park. And so is opportunity. Seven metro areas in the U.S. contain bordering states where legal, mobile sports betting is underway. Cincinnati-Kentucky-Indiana is one of those, and is the 30th-biggest metro area in the U.S.
Sports betting smooth sailing along the Ohio River
That state of modern air travel allowed InGame ample time to sample both Ohio and Kentucky sports betting recently, and the results were positive from a user experience. Geofencing also had a good day. Because Kentucky somehow got way more of the Ohio River around Cincinnati, a bet placed on an anonymous national sportsbook app’s Ohio version was thrown out as if by Elly De La Cruz well before halfway over the Brent Spence Bridge on Interstate-71 heading toward the airport. Having logged in a few days earlier in Kentucky, bets were awaiting south of the river by the time the car arrived at the massive pothole in the middle lane and slowed for flatbed trailer that was somehow sitting in the middle of the highway over the crest.
An extra five hours of leisure at Cincinnati & Northern Kentucky International Airport allowed for some more potential speculation and the afternoon slate was interesting with the Wimbledon men’s singles final, soccer’s Club World Cup, and final Sunday of the first half of the Major League Baseball season. The Reds’ line was slightly less favorable (-265) at Braxton Taproom than on the other side of the pothole (-252), but with Cincinnati having won three of the previous four and closing out with the fadeable Rockies, that was to be expected. Otherwise, it was very much like being on the other side of the renegade trailer, which presumably had been claimed by now.
I should have checked Kalshi to see if it had a contract on that. Next time.
