As always, it’s important to preface this post about NBA Championship gambling odds by saying that I do not gamble, and therefore I do not offer gambling advice. Even when I offer fantasy advice, that’s just coming from my gut, but you have to keep in mind that my gut went to Harvard while the rest of my body went to a public Florida university. The moral of this story is to make up your own mind, because I can only be trusted for fart jokes.

That said, the gambling site Bovada, which does claim to be run by experts and provide expert analysis, has released its odds for all 30 NBA teams winning the Larry O’Brien Trophy, and without any real surprise, the defending champion Miami Heat are the favorites, and the Los Angeles Lakers are right behind them. After that, the Oklahoma City Thunder, Chicago Bulls, Boston Celtics and San Antonio Spurs get a little love, but these odds basically tell us what we already know about this upcoming season – the Charlotte Bobcats are terrible.

Check out the odds after the jump, with very few surprises.

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Now that the 2012 Summer Olympics are behind us, we can officially say the same for Michael Phelps, he of the 22 Olympic medal fame. That is, unless he plans to show up to Rio for the 2016 games and be that bro who just comes back to chill with the younger bros and teach them a thing or two, but in either case he’s done competing at the Olympics. That means it’s time to start tearing him apart after we’ve all done so much to build him up.

Enter: The National Enquirer and its mynah bird, The Daily Mail. According to super secret inside sources and “a poker-playing friend” of Phelps, the 27-year old has taken quite the liking to professional poker – as evidenced by that above photo from 2008 and all of the times we’ve seen him playing poker since – and they’re worried that his wealth is in danger of his eagerness to gamble. I guess he really is the Michael Jordan of swimming. *high fives porpoise*

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I laughed so hard that I pooped my pants when I realized that American soccer “star” Landon Donovan has to go all the way to Mexico just to do TV commercials. Here’s Landy’s ad for Ganagol, which looks like some 12-line parlay pick ‘em game that’s sure to be any sort of ripoff whatsoever. It’s in Mexico! How corrupt could it possibly be? I wonder whether Donovan was soaked with indigenous pee before or after the shoot. “Before” seems to make more sense. Help him get into character. –Guanabee.

Amid the nationwide Election Day madness this week, THE state of Ohio passed a referendum that would allow the state to build casinos in its four largest cities. The gaming stocks love it, and the people of Ohio love it (the majority, anyway), but do you know who doesn’t love it? Mothers. They’re not content to ruin the lives of their own children. No, they have to make EVERYBODY miserable. Why should I be allowed to vote to overturn ridiculous laws that prevent me from doing what I want to do? Apparently because I’d be killing families, as this gratuitous ad seems to indicate. But I have no issue with that, either. That’s just less traffic between me and the blackjack table. –Ramblings of the Unmotivated.

Those of you hoping to lay down some sports betting in The First State this football season had better sit down. I should say “those of us,” actually: those great, visionary plans from the state of Delaware to offer single-game, multi-sport betting within its borders have been shot down in court.

A federal appeals court ruled Monday that sports betting in Delaware would violate a 1992 federal ban on such wagering, essentially halting the state’s plans to start taking bets next month.

Speaking for a three-judge panel, Judge Theodore McKee said Monday that the betting plan as currently envisioned violates the federal ban. A written opinion explaining the judges’ reasoning will be issued at a later date. via, via.

The unanimous ruling from the panel makes an appeal unlikely, which is a damn shame, because it seems like the federal government imposed the ban because they had nothing better to do. The leagues and the NCAA obviously oppose it; they’d rather see you spend $25 on a t-shirt than taking Boise State and the points. This truly is a sad day for America; I’ll just have to find some other medium to piss away my (not-so) hard-earned cash.

The No Fun League is in the midst of setting up a counterattack to a decision from the Supreme Court of Delaware that will allow betting on single games or multi-game parlays in 2009, a decision which should be forever known as Stodgy Bastards v. Awesomeness. The NFL will likely focus its challenge to the single-game betting proposal that many aspiring degenerates would prefer.

“The clear preference for those who wager on sports is to bet on a single game,” says Anthony Cabot, a Las Vegas attorney who specializes in gaming law. “It’s far more popular than simply offering parlay cards.”

“They have several avenues they can take,” Cabot said. “One way is to attack its legality under the state constitution.”

The Delaware Supreme Court has ruled that a sports lottery is legal under the state constitution when “chance was the dominant, determining factor” in that betting system. In their May decision to keep the sports lottery intact, the current justices didn’t directly address single-game wagering. [via]

And now New Jersey has already filed suit in federal court in order for that state to enjoy the economic rewards of people making poorly-conceived sports prognostications. I never understood why everyone, state AND federal, didn’t just legalize gambling and then tax the hell out of it. You’ll get way more than the 40 percent you’re taking out of my paycheck, you limey bastards. Unless, of course, the Giants manage to cover. Stupid Giants. [via]