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Survey Says Cleveland and Cincinnati Dominate Biggest NFL Busts List
NEW YORK, Feb. 15, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — They don’t have a Super Bowl win among them, but it appears that Ohio’s pro football teams are good at something. Drafting busts.
The sports betting website “The Game Day” conducted a nationwide survey of pro sports fans, who agreed that JaMarcus Russell is not only the biggest bust in NFL history, but fans voted him the biggest bust in professional sports history overall.
The data is based on responses given by sports fans across 48 states plus Washington, D.C., who voted on the biggest busts in the NFL, NBA, NHL, Major League Baseball and the biggest ever busts in all sports combined.
“What was jarring was seeing so many athletes with Ohio ties on the list, particularly given the broad group of respondents. It shows Ohioans’ loyalty given their feverish fandom even while enduring a substandard product through the years.” – Pat Pickens, Writer at The Game Day and author of “The Whalers: The Rise, Fall, and Enduring Mystique of New England’s (Second) Greatest NHL Franchise”
Let’s start in the NFL, where you’ll find the Browns and the Bengals dominating the list of teams fans believe have drafted the most busts.
Biggest Busts in NFL History
1. JaMarcus Russell – Oakland Raiders (23.8%)
2. Johnny Manziel – Cleveland Browns (23.5%)
3. Ryan Leaf – San Diego Chargers (16.1%)
4. David Carr – New York Giants (6.6.%)
5. Tony Mandarich – Green Bay Packers (5.5%)
6. Charles Rogers – Detroit Lions (5%)
7. Akili Smith – Cincinnati Bengals (4.9%)
8. Tim Couch – Cleveland Browns (4.5%)
9. Dion Jordan – Miami Dolphins (4.3%)
10. Ki-Jana Carter – Cincinnati Bengals (3.6%)
Johnny Manziel (Cleveland), Akili Smith (Cincinnati), Tim Couch (Cleveland) and Ki-Jana Carter (Cincinnati) are all in the top 10. Manziel was drafted 22nd overall in 2014, and played in only 14 games over two seasons in Cleveland before moving north to the Canadian Football League.
Smith was taken third overall by the Bengals in the 1999 NFL Draft and won only three games in his brief career.
Couch was selected first overall by the Browns in the 1999 NFL Draft, He was Cleveland’s first draft pick when the club re-joined the NFL as an expansion team.
Carter was selected first overall in the 1995 NFL Draft by the Cincinnati Bengals, but after suffering a ligament tear in his knee during his first preseason game, he was never the same.
Biggest Busts in Sports History (All Sports)
- JaMarcus Russell – Oakland Raiders (23.64%)
- Johnny Manziel – Cleveland Browns (23.34%)
- Greg Oden – Portland Trail Blazers (18.87%)
- Ryan Leaf – San Diego Chargers (15.99%)
- Brien Taylor – New York Yankees (14.10%)
- Anthony Bennett – Cleveland Cavaliers (12.81%)
- Kwame Brown – Washington Wizards (12.41%)
- Rick DiPietro – New York Islanders (12.31%)
- Brian Lawton – Minnesota North Stars (12.31%)
- Donavan Tate – San Diego Padres (11.92%)
And when you check the list of overall busts, it doesn’t get any better for Ohio. Johnny Manziel is number two on the list, Greg Oden is third, and Anthony Bennett is sixth. In fact, Oden and Bennett were voted the two biggest busts in NBA history (below).
Oden, although drafted by Portland as the number one overall pick in the 2007 NBA draft, has Ohio ties as a member of the Ohio State Buckeyes.
Anthony Bennett was the number one overall pick in the 2013 NBA Draft by the Cleveland Cavaliers out of UNLV. He lasted one season in Cleveland and was out of the league within three years.
Russell received votes from fans in 40 states plus Washington, D.C. and, perhaps unsurprisingly, his biggest vote share came from California.
Biggest Busts in NBA History
1. Greg Oden – Portland Trail Blazers (19.1%)
2. Anthony Bennett – Cleveland Cavaliers (12.9%)
3. Kwame Brown – Washington Wizards (12.5%)
4. Jay Williams – Chicago Bulls (10.3%)
5. Darko Miličić – Detroit Pistons (9.5%)
6. Sam Bowie – Portland Trail Blazers (9.5%)
7. Chris Washburn – Golden State Warriors (7.8%)
8. Michael Olowokandi – Los Angeles Clippers (6%)
9. (Tie) Adam Morrison – Charlotte Hornets (5%)
(Tie) Hasheem Thabeet – Memphis Grizzlies (5%)
Oden and Bennett top the list of the biggest busts in the NBA (according to the survey). Oden grabbed more than 19% of the vote and Bennett nearly 13%.
Biggest Busts in MLB History
1. Brien Taylor – New York Yankees (14.2%)
2. Donavan Tate – San Diego Padres (12%)
3. Matt Bush – San Diego Padres (11.1%)
4. Todd Van Poppel – Oakland Athletics (10.6%)
5. Mark Appel – Detroit Tigers (10%)
Taylor was thought to be a can’t-miss fireballer of a pitcher taken number one overall in the 1992 draft by the New York Yankees. But after hurting his shoulder in a fight, he never got out of the minor leagues.
Biggest Busts in NHL History
1. (Tie) Rick DiPietro – New York Islanders (12.5%)
(Tie) Brian Lawton – Minnesota North Stars (12.5%)
3. Claude Gauthier – Detroit Red Wings (11%)
4. Nail Yakupov – Edmonton Oilers (10.7%)
5. Patrik Štefan – Atlanta Thrashers (9.4%)
DiPietro had his one impressive season (2006-07), but injuries cut his career short.
“The survey clearly shows that the perception of athletes is directly tied to a person’s fandom and familiarity of a player within their state. And as a New Yorker who is a Knicks fan, I can relate to sticking with a team despite all the letdowns.” – Rich Migliorisi, VP of Web Operations at The Game Day
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Contact:Lauren Polkey: [email protected]
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ProgressPlay brings forward the future of casino management with revolutionary AI

Once again, casino and sports platform provider ProgressPlay are ahead of their time with a new wave of technology innovation that has helped the company to attend major shows during 2023 with soaring confidence based on pioneering proprietary technological advances that have featured strongly in annual awards shows.
The company’s future-centred thinking and ambitious AI product development attracted a raft of operators and partners attending last week’s SiGMA Europe in Malta. A raft of casino operators during the show had the opportunity to see firsthand ProgressPlay’s new tech which offers a comprehensive gaming management solution across multiple channels and products.
ProgressPlay’s enhanced iGaming platform provides operators with a powerful real-time AI-driven proprietary flow tool for optimising the performance of an online casino in a dynamic data ecosystem. Real-time player interaction provides compliance teams with the information to manage and interact with players.
Last year, ProgressPlay undertook an ambitious reframe of their technology with new proprietary Responsible Gambling automation and tools at its heart. ProgressPlay’s new platform manages player accounts, payments, bonuses, loyalty programs, fraud prevention and games, using robust tools and analytics.
ProgressPlay Sales Manager Marina Nahhas said: “ProgressPlay’s innovative Responsible Gambling software covers topics like KYC, player activity, affordability levels, and a transparent audit trail. These topics resonate heavily with operators and we were delighted with the level of engagement around this revenue-critical activity during the week we spent in Malta.”
ProgressPlay’s combo sportsbook and comprehensive turnkey solution, including casino platform, player management, payments module, and affiliate software are designed to boost operators seeking to effectively drive both revenue and efficiency with the latest cutting-edge technology.
Over 150 online casino brands have partnered with ProgressPlay covering a unique combination of casino games and sports-betting. ProgressPlay’s sportsbook offers up to 40,000 live betting markets and services across 20 languages while the latest platform offers a slick AI-driven UI/UX, and extensive value-added services alongside thousands of casino games, including slots, online casino, live casino, poker, table games, and sportsbook, across all devices and currencies.
ProgressPlay CEO Itai Loewenstein said: “Commercial agreements are being driven by our breakthrough technology that enables deployment of our AI tools for greater efficiency and revenue-generation. SiGMA Europe has been the last stop in a busy year and we believe that since we first launched our new technology in London at the beginning of the year our sophisticated Responsible Gambling tool has quickly moved beyond the early-adopter stage.”
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SiGMA Europe 2023 in Malta: Slotegrator shares key insights

Every year, SiGMA Europe gathers iGaming professionals together to connect, share insights, and sum up the year. This year, the event was visited by over 20,000 participants from over 100 countries. The Slotegrator team found the trip to be truly inspirational and is ready to share its insights.
SiGMA Europe was the best place to summarize the results of 2023. For Slotegrator, this year was dedicated to researching customers’ requirements and desires, players’ interests, and industry tendencies. Throughout the year, Slotegrator visited events in four huge iGaming markets – Africa, Asia, LatAm and Europe – to get a clear picture of what those markets are like.
At each of these events, the team gathered firsthand knowledge on how to improve Slotegrator’s flagship products and provide even better service to the company’s clients.
At SiGMA Europe 2023 in Malta, the Slotegrator team presented new features of its turnkey online casino platform and the phenomenal mobile solution – Telegram Casino – which was first presented by Slotegrator in 2017 and updated in 2022.
Slotegrator’s top managers also had plenty of meetings with partners about the company’s APIgrator solution – a unique solution for the fast and seamless integration of online casino games into gambling platforms. The solution incorporates more than 15,000 various slots, card games, live dealer games, and virtual sports from 100 world’s leading developers. In 2024, Slotegrator will present to the market plenty of new partnerships with providers from different parts of the world.
“SiGMA Europe 2023 was a great event for our team, as usual. To gather in such a great place to meet partners, to summarize preliminary results of the year, to outline plans for the future – it was the right decision,” says Yana Khaidukova, Managing Director at Slotegrator.
Slotegrator mentions that the composition of the iGaming world is changing: new companies have already appeared and will continue to appear not only for occuping a part of the existing market, but they form new niches, as they come with new spectacular offers and solutions. It is the reason why the competition increases many times, and it gives the industry new directions of development.
As for providers, their number is increasing very rapidly. Small companies are growing into large ones, which shows the success of their solutions, and new companies come with fresh ideas, games and experience that players like.
One trend that is only going to increase is the interest in crash games. Prominent studios are introducing new examples of fresh crash games. Leaders, who are already successful in this niche, such as Aviatrix, continue to modify their crash game and expand it into new markets and continue to win the hearts of new players by providing them with an amazing gaming experience.
According to the Slotegrator’s observations, many Asian companies took part in SiGMA Europe 2023, which suggests that the Asian vector will be very popular next year.
Here are some additional key insights from SiGMA Europe that the company will carry into next year:
- Responsible Gaming is growing more and more important to players, operators, and regulators.
- It’s essential to embrace innovation. New technologies can let operators offer players more choices and solve problems faster and more effectively.
- Operators need to keep increasing their security and anti-fraud measures. Scammers are always on the lookout for new ways to defraud casinos, so operators need to try and stay a few steps ahead of them.
- Players want to be a part of a community. Platform operators should create a welcoming atmosphere by offering features like multiplayer chats where players can connect with each other.
- It’s essential that online casinos show loyal players their appreciation. Better bonuses can keep players coming back, as well as referral programs where players earn rewards for bringing in new leads.
- Cryptocurrencies, NFTs, and blockchain tech in general are here to stay. Finding ways to integrate them can help you offer your players a better, more modern experience.
- Player behavior should be constantly analyzed in order to identify trends and enhance player retention strategies.
As for the last point, Slotegrator is set to release internal reports on the state of the industry that provide an analysis of player behavior and predictions for the development of the industry in 2024. To be one of the first to receive the reports, subscribe to Slotegrator’s social media channel here.
ABOUT SLOTEGRATOR
Since 2012, Slotegrator has been one of the iGaming industry’s leading software and business solution providers for online casino and sportsbook operators.
The company’s main focus is software development and support for online casino platforms, as well as the integration of game content and payment systems.
The company works with licensed game developers and offers a vast portfolio of casino content: slots, live casino games, poker, virtual sports, table games, lotteries, casual games, and data feeds for betting.
Slotegrator also provides consulting services in gambling license acquisition and business incorporation.
More information: https://slotegrator.pro/
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