While the coronavirus issue has shut down the vast majority of the major sports leagues around the world, there are still betting options at New Jersey sportsbooks. Table tennis is happening in Ukraine, Russia, and the Czech Republic, and those competitions have proved popular with American gamblers.
PointsBet Sports Content Manager Andrew Mannino recently stated, “Bettors in New Jersey are taking a shine to table tennis now. They seemed to be more resistant at first, going more for hockey and soccer (both in Belarus) early on. But table tennis is an exciting game, and there are multiple matches every day. Pretty soon you notice you’re seeing the same people more than once, so you start to see trends.”
New Jersey’s online sportsbook operators are still looking for more betting options for their customers. The Burundi Premier Soccer League still has some matches remaining and there is also some golf betting available. The Cactus Tour calls itself “The Tour for Women Golf Professionals in the Western United States”, and odds for its tournaments are available at PointsBet and other New Jersey sportsbooks.
While the Cactus Tour is not the main women’s tour in the United States, it still boasts some high-profile players such as Anna Nordqvist, who won the LPGA Championship in 2009, and Carlota Ciganda, who has four top-10 finishes in LPGA majors.
The Chinese Taipei basketball season will begin next week, giving New Jersey bettors another wagering option. Other sports betting avenues include futures betting on the WNBA Draft, NASCAR’s iRacing, South Korea and Chinese Taipei baseball, and handball and volleyball in Belarus. The New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement (DGE) recently approved betting on soccer matches in Algeria, Bolivia, Cameroon, Chile, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Fiji, Ghana, Hong Kong, Nigeria, Singapore, South Africa, and Uruguay.
Coming soon to New Jersey sportsbooks will be odds on lawn bowling and snooker in Britain, cricket in India, hockey in Ukraine, and handball in Turkey and Sweden. The DGE has also approved basketball betting for more than a dozen leagues in such countries as Argentina, Australia, and China once they begin.
Mannino stated, “We’re doing our best to keep on top of all of this, and we’re all getting geography lessons. We’re expecting word on April 14 whether cricket will be resumed in India. Lawn bowling, they did get a couple of matches in before they shut down.”
Mannino said that New Jersey gambling regulators had been doing their homework on the sports mentioned in a bid to fend off corruption. He added that PointsBet was on board with the DGE’s approach: “We want integrity just like they do.”
For the aforementioned sports, the regulators have set a maximum betting limit of $500. Mannino approves of those measures and said, “We wouldn’t even want to take a $10,000 bet on a tennis tournament with a $1,000 first prize.”
The lower maximum wagers can also help combat compulsive gambling, which has become a major talking point during the COVID-19 crisis. Mannino stated, “Everyone’s stuck at home, and they have to make sure they don’t get a little stir-crazy.”