The Meadows Sportsbook Review
Located just southwest of Pittsburgh in North Strabane Township, PA, The Meadows Racetrack and Casino has been in operation since the early 1960s, making it one of the oldest gambling venues in the state. As such, if and when The Meadows opens its sports betting facilities to the public (now that PASPA has been overturned by the Supreme Court), it should be one of the most popular gaming destinations in western PA. Once live, the Meadows sportsbook review is sure to increase both the facility’s yearly audience and its mindshare in and around Pittsburgh.
Interestingly, back in 1983, The Meadows was the first racebook in the state to offer account-based telephone wagering options (called Call-A-Bet) to its clientele, aligning them with the kind of forward-thinking approach that modern sports betting in PA will require going forward.
The Meadows sportsbook is not open for business, and it will not be ready to accept wagers from the public until the first few months of 2019 at the earliest. However, the venue has already been approved for their state license to offer sports wagering, and the current delays are due to the recent sale of The Meadows to Penn National Gaming, which – until taking over the property itself – was strictly the venue’s operator.
However, given that Penn National also operates the Hollywood Casino – which just became the first Pennsylvania casino to offer and accept sports wagers on-site (the first bets were placed on Thursday, November 15, 2018) – it seems reasonable that The Meadows will meet its goal of opening its sports betting lounge to the public in Q1 2019 as currently anticipated. There is no word on when The Meadows intends to launch its mobile sports betting product, but you can rest assured that that’s also in the works.
Of course, you don’t actually have to wait for The Meadows sportsbook to open before you can wager on sports at Pennsylvania sportsbooks. All you really have to do is get on the Internet and sign up at one of the legal offshore sportsbooks that have been serving the PA area for more than 20 years. Sites like Bovada, SportsBetting, 5Dimes, BetDSI, and BetOnline are all top-ranked online sportsbooks with reputations for competitive odds, fair lines, and guaranteed payouts. Hundreds of thousands of PA residents are already members of these services, and more join every day. As always, using these sites remains 100% legal and totally free, too.
There has been no indication that the sportsbook at The Meadows Racetrack & Casino will offer proxy betting. Proxy betting is when an individual located out of state has a person visit a casino and place bets on their behalf. As there is no way for the casino to determine if the person requesting the proxy lives in a state where wagering is legal, proxies are generally prohibited. Using a third party to place bets also makes age verification difficult, which could result in underage gambling. For these reasons, proxy betting is considered illegal in nearly every state. If you want to bet on the big game but are unable to physically go to The Meadows Sportsbook, use an online sports betting site like Bovada.
Mobile betting requires an online betting portal to actually operate, and PA state law allows for this. That said, if you want to place mobile bets at The Meadows sportsbook, you’re going to have to wait a while. When The Meadows Racetrack and Casino first opens its sports betting lounge on-site, this – for a little while, at least – will be the only place anyone will be able to wager on sports at the venue.
However, once online betting is rolled out later, anyone will be able to access The Meadows sportsbook via their iPhone or Android web browser, making sports betting that much more convenient. Sometime after the online component of The Meadows sportsbook goes live, an official iPhone and Android app solution should be arriving on the scene, but due to various Apple and Google policies, a dedicated, native smartphone/tablet Meadows sportsbook app probably won’t hit the market until sometime in 2019.
Until either of these services is launched, of course, you can still wager on sports over the Internet in Pennsylvania by using one or more of the aforementioned legal offshore sportsbooks.
Proxy betting should be an important part of any Meadows sportsbook review, as many thousands of customers would certainly take advantage of the service. A legal workaround of the Interstate Wire Act of 1961, proxy betting allows sports bettors to place wagers with a sportsbook even when they are out of state. Since the Wire Act prevents bookmakers from accepting sports bets across state lines, proxy bettors – or local third-party individuals or services – exist to act as go-betweens so that the federal law isn’t violated.
Because many patrons of The Meadows don’t actually live in PA and simply travel to the facility throughout the year from surrounding states, The Meadows sportsbook should have proxy betting so these customers can keep wagering even when they’re not actually in Pennsylvania. Remember, proxy betting is important because even in the age of mobile online betting, any Internet-based service offered by The Meadows Racetrack and Casino will be geo-fenced such that sports bettors must physically be in the state to place their wagers. Proxy betting gives sports bettors tremendous freedom, and that’s a very good thing.
