Interview with Don La Greca: The issues with NHL gambling and betting

Over the past season, ESPN’s Don La Greca has popularized his own picks during segments on his ESPN broadcasts, including the famous The Michael Kay Show on 98.7 FM ESPN New York. He sits down with us to discuss sports betting and the NHL.

Last week, I took a look at the state of the sports betting and the NHL. Just across the Hudson River from me, Don La Greca, famous as the New York Rangers radio broadcaster, but more widely known as the co-host of The Michael Kay Show on 98.7 FM ESPN New York alongside Michael Kay and Peter Rosenberg (which airs weekdays from 3-7 p.m.) has put together his own betting repertoire.

With the Stanley Cup Playoffs about to begin, this also ushers in the first year that some parts of the country can actually wager their own money on the games and have a little bit of a personal stake in the game. This is nothing new for Vegas, but for places like New Jersey where widespread sports betting was legalized last summer, there’s going to be a lot of people heading to the sportsbooks betting on money lines, over/under, and who’s going to win the next face off.

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On his show, La Greca hosts his own NHL segment called ‘Ice Picks’ giving advice and tips to his listeners on who he believes will win the matchup. Fans have taken his suggestions and have begun to bet on them.

He’s pretty good at it, as well, with a 40-17 record as of our interview. I wish I had that success rate, but with the amount of times I actually bet on the New Jersey Devils this season, I should probably stay away from gambling for a while.

The New York hockey legend was gracious enough to sit down with me and discuss his views on sports betting, the NHL, and betting on the upcoming playoffs:

Starting off with a simple enough question, what’s the difference between betting on the National Hockey League versus the other professional sports? La Greca explained that the complexity behind betting and odds make the NHL a harder bet to earn a return on as opposed to the other major sports.

“I just don’t think there’s a lot of money in betting on the NHL. The one thing I found is difficult is the money lines are lik, say Edmonton is getting a goal and a half and I love that pick, but it’s like at -280 which means you have to bet $280 to get $100, so it seems like it doesn’t when you really want to see where you can make the money those bets are like impossible.

Like, if Ottawa goes to Tampa and beats the Lightning, you’ll get a +180, but there’s almost no chance that that’s going to happen. So it seems like I make my picks and when I do, I win like 75% percent of the time. But is there a lot of money to be made from my individual pick?

So what I’m noticing my fans are doing is they’re parlaying basketball and they need a third or they need a second and they don’t know a lot about hockey, so they’ll listen to my ice pick and even though it might not be lucrative as a singular bet, they can parlay it with something else they know and then they make money that way.”

In my article last week, I said that sports gambling was good for the NHL because it would help develop an interest and bring new fans to the game. What remains to be seen if more people being interested means more people buying tickets to see the game live. La Greca had some doubts that more gambling would lead to more ticket revenue, with the specific enemy being his own television set.

“I think there are a lot of things that are driving people away from the arenas to begin with because the television experience is so great. See, my concern is that, especially with hockey, when you’re trying to parlay these picks, you know with the packages I can watch all the games, is it better for me to just be home and watching the game I have a bet on and flipping over to the other game I have a bet on rather than being stuck at the arena and not knowing what the heck is going on? Or do I go to the arena but I’m spending all the time in the sports book?

Kind of reminds me of when the Devils opened up the Rock. Even when they were drawing well you’d watch it on television and you would see between the blue lines there’s nobody in your seats because, with those seats, you get free food up in the concourse, and they’re all sitting there watching, eating free food, drinking, watching the game on television and they’re not in their seats so I think it’s another aspect of where why would I spend all that money for the sports packages?

I got a 57 inch television set with HD, I got a man cave downstairs that I pay $35,000 for and I’m going to leave that all behind to go sit in an arena and not knowing what the heck’s going on, looking at my phone, possibly getting hit by a puck or a baseball, you know paying $13 for a beer and paying $35 to park? So I think I think you’re right. The more popular the gambling becomes the more you’re going to want to be somewhere where you can watch everything that’s going on…”

Interestingly, La Greca continued that this wasn’t only a concern the NHL faces, but professional sports as a whole. He even put the NFL on notice.

“So I think all the sports need to be concerned, especially football with fantasy. Why would I want to sit there and watch one football game, when my quarterback’s playing in LA and I could be watching it at home? I think it’s a major concern for all the sports.”

La Greca sees the potential that gambling on hockey can have for exposure as a sport overall, but he still thinks the challenges of professional hockey reaching the professional sports watching masses might be too far to overcome.

“The biggest thing with hockey is most people aren’t exposed to it. I think it’s way more popular than it should be compared to the obstacles it has. Think about it – the overwhelming majority of the players aren’t from this country, they have names that people have difficulty pronouncing…”

“I would say they probably have the lowest percentage of fans that have played the sport compared to the other sports. Everybody’s played some form of basketball, some form of baseball, some form of football. But I would venture to say that at least 60 or 70% of people in the building never put on skates before, yet they’re still interested in the sport.

You can imagine how much more interested they’d be if they could relate to it and if everybody was American and every high school in the country had a hockey team. When you consider all the disadvantages that it has to the other sports, I think it’s a miracle that it has the interest it has.

If I can relate to a sport rather than playing it but through gambling on it and getting to know it cause I would think, I’m not a gambler myself, but if I were to be betting a lot of money on it, I’d want to know about it, I’d want to study it so that can create a lot more interest in it.”

On his impressive win/loss record with his ‘Ice Picks’ segment, La Greca explained that years of watching the Rangers and studying their opponents have given him a good feel for the league and the teams that are the matchups. With his years of infinite wisdom, he’s more likely to make his picks off his gut and intuition than some scholarly, analytical approach.

“Most of it’s my gut because I’m just a hockey junkie. I’m watching games, you know, I almost feel like if there’s a game on I gotta watch it. I’d rather lose on my gut than being talked into something so I kind of trust my eyes and my heart.”

Even if his wins greatly outnumber his losses, when his listeners put there hard earned money on a team off Don’s advice that results in a loss, they aren’t necessarily happy and will take to Twitter to voice their frustration. That’s not without saying that the ‘Ice Picks’ segment has had its fair share of success stories, including one fan who sent in a $500 tip because of his winnings.

“’Incarcerated Bob’, because apparently he was incarcerated, calls the show all the time and he’s the one who’s said he’s made like $19,000 on my picks this year, that’s the guy that sent me the $500 tip which I just gave to the board op and the producers because they work hard and they don’t get paid nearly as much money.”

Sports leagues have been cautious to embrace any form of gambling because of the type of corrupt it brings along with it. No league, let alone the NHL, wants to be caught in the next Pete Rose scandal. When asked what the NHL should do to prevent its players from partaking in such activities, La Greca was quick to say don’t worry about the players but watch the referees.

“I just don’t know how lucrative it is for these players who make so much money. I’d be more worried about the officials who don’t make quite as much money than I would be like with the Donaghy stuff in the NBA. Because with minimum salaries now, I just don’t know if it would make a lot of sense for the players to do it.”

Tim Donaghy was an NBA referee who was caught using his position of power to bet on games he was officiating. He later plead guilty to federal charges, hurting the accountability of the NBA. LaGreca continued comparing the current climate of NHL salaries with another infamous sport betting episode, the Chicago Black Sox scandal from the early days of Major League Baseball.

“Back to the Black Sox scandal, those guys weren’t making any money. They had a cheapskate owner. They felt they had to do this just to make ends meet. I just don’t think it would be worth it today with the money that they’re making. Now the officials, that’s another thing because they don’t make quite as much money.”

La Greca went on to explain that he is skeptical of the effect sports gambling would have on “tanking” teams, which while the NHL has put safeguards in place to try to dissuade teams from tanking, it’s an open secret many still do.

“You’ve already got allegations of tanking in sports to get the better draft pick. So if you got a team that’s looking to lose anyway just because of the fact they want a better draft pick, then what would be the big deal of just letting an odd goal go in if it’s going to put some money in their pocket?”

One thing La Greca said he would do if he was Gary Bettman – if he was going to institute a punishment, he better make it severe.

“I don’t think it would be lucrative enough for them to risk their careers, but you’d need to have a punishment that puts their careers in jeopardy.”

One of the final subjects of our conversation was the impending Stanley Cup Playoffs and how to bet on them. Although Don already submitted his picks for each round and the eventual cup winner, his advice to gamblers is take it one round at a time. Although not a fan of the current playoff format, he did explain that it makes it easier to plan out your bets as the playoffs progress:

“It’s a little easier now than it was back in the day because you can project out who everyone’s going to play with the brackets now. I’m not in love with the playoff format, but it’s better than the old days where everything got messed around because you’d have an eighth seed upset. Tampa knows they’re either going to play Toronto or Boston, so I guess it’s a little easier if you wanted to kind of extrapolate it out until the end.”

One advantage La Greca gave to the old format was the ability to see major playoff upsets, where the real payouts are.

“To strategize getting to the Cup Final, this would be easier because, again, you’d know who everyone’s going to play, you’d narrow it down. What would the odds be? You’d have to pick an eighth seed to win, like when the Kings won the Stanley Cup as an eighth seed”

After he brought back those long-repressed memories of my Devils losing in the 2012 cup final, one last question came to mind. In a few weeks when a new champion has been crowned and the cup gets sent for its engravings, we’re going to start to see plenty of “too early” power rankings show up, trying to explain who will win the 2020 Stanley Cup before the ink on free agent contracts is even dry.

So when is the best time in an NHL season to finally see who the contenders and pretenders will pan out to be? Specifically, I asked La Greca if he still believes in the old “Thanksgiving rule”, that teams in an NHL playoff spot by the Thanksgiving holiday statistically have a high 70% chance rate of being in the final playoff standings. This season might have prompted La Greca to push that date back a few months.

“Well, it’s interesting because this is the only one year where only 11 of the 16 that were in the playoffs at Thanksgiving made the playoffs. You’re starting to see the pendulum swing where you know that because of the extra point because of the competitive balance, it used to be American Thanksgiving. Now I think you almost have to wait until the first of the year. Because you’re a little bit closer to the trading deadline, but you see, every game is a one-goal game.”

Need any more convincing? Look at the St. Louis Blues.

“St. Louis was the worst team in the NHL on January 2nd, and they ended up making the playoffs and almost winning their division. That’s not supposed to happen.”

If you want to hear Don La Greca talk about his personal ‘Ice Picks’, listen to him daily on The Michael Kay Show broadcasting on ESPN 98.7 New York weekdays from 3:00-7:00 pm Eastern. In addition, Don also hosts an NHL specific podcast called “Game Misconduct” for ESPN Radio. Also a very special thank you Belen Michelis from ESPN 98.7 for making this incredible interview possible.

As for my personal gambling, before the season began I bet the New Jersey Devils to win the Stanley Cup, and instead they won the draft lottery. Maybe I’ll sit this one out, so don’t take my advice, take Don’s instead.

Also a very special thank you Belen Michelis from ESPN Communications for making this incredible interview possible.