the playoffs, you want people to be ready to play meaningful games in January. I’m watching the NBA playoffs now and you

ATLANTIC CITY Riley Ridley Jersey , N.J. (AP)The Meadowlands Racetrack in New Jersey took in nearly $3.5 million in sports bets during its first nine days of accepting such bets.And most of that came from two weekends that sandwiched a dead period for major professional sports caused by baseball’s All-Star break, when there was little to bet on, with basketball and soccer World Cup over, and football and hockey months away from beginning their seasons.Meadowlands operator Jeff Gural told The Associated Press it accepted just under $3.5 million worth of sports bets since it began taking them on July 14.”We did OK,” Gural said Monday. ”Our goal the first weekend was to exceed $1million which we did. The next four days were quiet with nothing to bet on due to the All-Star break.”This past Saturday, with baseball having resumed Greedy Williams Jersey , the track took in over $650,000, and additional bets on baseball and other sports came in on Sunday.Gural said he is pleased with the track’s initial performance ”despite the fact that we are not at full strength and only have 10 live tellers windows open.”The FanDuel Sportsbook at the Meadowlands will be expanded. It is located in East Rutherford, in the same sports complex six miles from New York City where the NFL’s New York Giants and Jets play.So far, two tracks, the Meadowlands and Monmouth Park Sione Takitaki Jersey , and two Atlantic City casinos, the Borgata and Ocean Resort, offer sports betting in New Jersey. But many others have applied for permission to begin offering sports betting, in person and online, before the start of the NFL season in September.Monmouth and the casinos reaped $16.4 million in the first two weeks of June.New Jersey won a U.S. Supreme Court case on May 14 clearing the way for all 50 states to offer legal sports betting should they so desire. It began offering sports betting on June 14.The latest statistics on how much the casinos and tracks took in from sports betting will be released by the state Division of Gaming Enforcement on Aug. 14.—Follow Wayne Parry at http://twitter.com/WayneParryAC Count Hall of Fame coach Tony Dungy as one who does not want to see the NFL expand its regular season to 18 games.Dungy appeared this morning on and said the idea of an 18-game schedule, which is being bandied about as the NFL and the players’ union discuss a new Collective Bargaining Agreement Sheldrick Redwine Jersey , is a bad one.“I think it would be a mistake,” Dungy said. “I think one of the things that’s great about the NFL now is every game matters. You’ve got these tight races, 16 games is a lot. You want to get into the playoffs, you want people to be ready to play meaningful games in January. I’m watching the NBA playoffs now and you see the effects of this long season. Kawhi Leonard limping up and down the floor, Kevin Durant out, Klay Thompson may be out Austin Seibert Jersey , that’s not what people want to see in the playoffs. We’d get some of the same thing if you add more games. I don’t think it’d be good for the players. I don’t think it’d be good for the product.”Dungy said that if the owners and the players ever do agree to expand the regular season, it will be “the greed factor” overruling what’s best for the quality of play.