There are several laws that pertain to sports betting, but the most relative one is the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act, or PASPA. PASPA was passed in an effort to stop the rapid legalization of sports betting in the US. There are only four states exempted from PASPA and Delaware is one of the four—the other exempted states are Montana, Oregon and Nevada. These states were exempted because they already had some form of legalized sports betting in place. Nevada is the only exempted state to have unrestricted sportsbooks. The other states have conditional forms of sports betting.
For Delaware, legalized sports betting is facilitated by the state Lottery. When it comes to Delaware’s sports gambling, Delaware residents are restricted to different types of parlay bets for NFL games only. A parlay is one bet that combines several bets. Parlay bets involve betting on several outcomes. In order for a player to successfully win a parlay bet, all of the outcomes they bet on have to come true. If one or more of the outcomes doesn’t happen, then the parlay bet is lost. The benefit of parlay bets is that they come with much higher payoffs since the odds of successfully predicting several outcomes are harder. The odds are fixed on parlay cards and the minimum bet is $2 in Delaware. Parlay card are available at all Sports Lottery locations on Wednesday. The betting lines are posted every Monday at Sports Lottery retailers.
If you aren’t too familiar with the teams or sports betting in general, you can opt for a Quick Pick card—an automated parlay card from the Lottery with random selections. If you’d like to make your own selection, the types of parlay cards are explained in the following paragraphs.
You can start betting daily during the preseason with the Early Bird Card. The Half-Point Parlay Card is a very popular card and offers payoffs ranging from 6.5 for 1 on a three-team parlay to 2,500 for 1 on a 12-team parlay. Teaser cards are slightly different in that the favored teams have to cover fewer points in the spread. Players who use teaser cards get smaller payouts because the odds are in the bettor’s favor. With teasers, players can parlay from 3 to 20 teams with payoffs between 13 for 5 or 1,000 to 1. Reverse teaser cards have the favorites covering a wider point spread and the underdogs covering a smaller, sometimes even minus, point spread. The payoffs on these cards are higher due to the spread adjustments. Players may parlay from 3 to 8 teams and with payoffs between 20 for 1 to 5,000 for 1. There are also Super Teaser cards which have the favorites covering fewer points than the regular teaser cards. These payoffs are lower because the advantages the players get on the spread. Super teasers have payoffs between 11 for 5 to 80 for 1.
There is also a $100,000 parlay card where players bet $5 and select 15 outcomes going against the point spread. If that player correctly picks all 15 outcomes, they win the grand prize of $100,000. In the event of multiple winners, the prize money is divided up accordingly. All of these parlay cards also have total options. Total bets involve betting that the combined final score will either be over or under a predetermined amount. While all of these options may seem nice, they’re only available during the NFL season, leaving bettors in the dark with other sports.