Did you know that when Congress passed anti-sports gambling legislation years, ago, it didn’t apply to Delaware?  Along with Nevada, the state was grandfathered out of the ban due to an ill-fated legal parlay card program that existed for a little while in “the First State”.  Some in Delaware want to take advantage of that exception and are clamoring for sports betting to keep up with a feared exodus of revenue from the state now that Maryland has legalized slots.

Of course with Republicans largely (but not entirely) responsible for legislation limiting online wagering, the entire issue may be revisited at a federal level now that revenue-hungry Democrats control the Senate, House, and White House triumverate.

I’ve got some “teams that start 0-4″ underdog angles in the NFL, as the public doesn’t want to back these teams, opponents tend to let down against them, and, in theory at least, the players should be motivated to turn their season around.  But the Houston Texans are a very odd example of an 0-4 team.  After their 0-4 start, Houston has won 3 of 4, yet are only 1-3 against the spread in those games. While most 0-4 teams are getting copious points, the Texans were actually favored games 5, 6, and 7, as their offensive talent maintained the respect of bettors who realized that the Texans had a tough schedule early and deserved favoritism at home over bad teams like the Lions and Bengals.

The Cleveland Browns keep finding new and innovative ways to lost ballgames, as we saw on Thursday night.  Tough to see Romeo Crennel lasting there.   Crennel inadvertantly gave the Broncos some bulletin board marterial when Denver picked up on the Browns’ coach saying “we’ll beat Denver” as a way of cutting off some reporter’s questions about his quarterback change in a news conference. Broncos defensive lineman Ebenezer Ebuban said, “All week we were keying off what Romeo Crennel said about how the Browns were going to beat us. In that fourth quarter, we told everybody, ‘Hey, can’t let him beat us.’ So thanks to Romeo Crennel.”

“Poll position” may not be as meaningful as you think among top-ranked college football teams in November. As tempting as it is to say “this team will destroy their opponent to impress the pollsters,” the end of the season simply hasn’t worked out that way all the time. The teams that made the last four BCS Championship games have a combined 13-17-1 pointspread record in their last four regular season games (Florida had a non-lined game against Western Carolina late in 2006).  And those were the teams that succeeded in making it to the championship game.   Interestingly, the only team of that octet that had a winning spread record is the one that has earned the fans utter disdain, as last year’s Ohio State Buckeyes closed 3-1 to the number.

The Breeders’ Cup handle was up only marginally despite the increase from 11 races to 14 and much better weather this year.   But that handle did include the money of one Marian Hinnant.  Hinnant, a juror on Alaska Senator Ted Stevens’ corruption trial, bailed on deliberations with the story that her father had passed away.   In fact, she had a plane ticket from Washington DC to Los Angeles to see the Breeders Cup and simply didn’t want to miss it.

Good luck this weekend.  And be careful.