THE LIFE OF A BOOKIE – WASHINGTON, D.C.

Even though it’s the center of government in America, it does not necessarily mean that Washington D.C. is the most straight-laced area in the U.S.

There’s a lot of action here. Hey, this was fertile territory for bootleggers during Prohibition.

In point of fact, federal employees are all over the sports betting issue these days. Not only has the very restrictive PASPA (Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act) been blown apart, but the district itself is considering legislation to legalize sports betting.

To those of you who are bookies – and hopefully using the PPH software available through Real Bookies – you must be wondering whether that will help or hurt your private business.

The answer is that it most probably would. People like to play on credit.

If you are looking for business in the city itself, you may want to point yourself squarely toward Georgetown.

No, not the college – although it is the location of a basketball team that has been in the spotlight from time to time – but the neighborhood. It is a center for the movers and shakers – sort of a nerve center for power playing and, well, insider “stuff.”

• There are great suburbs to draw from as well. Northern Virginia is tremendous ground – that is where a lot of the D.C. crowd lives and commutes from, and it was actually considered at one time as a possible landing spot for an MLB expansion team, before the area bagged the Montreal Expos.
• There are lots of peripheral folks to choose from – lobbyists, along with aides, bureaucrats – any others in the industry who want to be on the government “pad.”

And they might be dream clients, in the respect that they have some disposable income, don’t have a local casino to go to, are power-minded and arrogant. In short, they are not the most conscientious players. So you’ll get your share of “squares” here.

• The Washington Nationals may have lost their biggest star, Bryce Harper, to free agency, but they have nonetheless developed a following that the Senators were never able to put together. They had a paid attendance of over 2.5 million fans in 2018, and they have at least been able to shed the label of being a perennial “second division team” that plagued the Senators’ two American League franchises before they moved to Minneapolis and Texas, respectively.
• At the Capital One Arena, which is located in the Chinatown area of the city, the Washington Wizards and Washington Capitals do business. After a long period of suffering, the Caps finally won the Stanley Cup in 2018 with living legend Alexander Ovechkin.

• Anybody who aspires to be a bookie in the nation’s capital has to understand that they are going to be handling football first and foremost. And that is because this is a town that is overly consumed with one team specifically.
• Yes, their nickname has been the subject of much protest (although not as much of late), but there is no question that the Washington Redskins are the team that commands the most attention. In fact, the devotion is such that there may be nothing in the National Football League that compares to it.

And what’s particularly interesting is that those among the political crowd who religiously attend Redskins games are from all over the country. Of course, some of this is strategic, in the sense that football tickets and luxury boxes are great political currency. But there are enough people who love their ‘Skins anyway.

And why not? They have a rich history, going all the way back to Slingin’ Sammy Baugh. George Allen is the guy who brought some post-war success and the first Super Bowl appearance, and then Joe Gibbs won three Super Bowls with three different quarterbacks.

• There is nothing quite like the Redskins’ rivalry with the Dallas Cowboys, and that has held true for over fifty years. It will spike your business, to be certain.
• Just make sure that you follow certain principles, and make use of what the PPH software has to offer. If you feel as if you need to be extra careful on Redskins games, especially as they concern the Cowboys, you can always wait until putting the game on the board. You have that capability with the Real Bookies apparatus. You can also shift the lines, minimize your exposure by imposing limits on certain players who may be “sharp” or potentially a “slow-pay” proposition, and offer a full casino as a change of pace.

But whatever you do, just don’t pitch your services when you’re touring the White House.