AMERICANS LOVE sports. Americans love to gamble.

We play. We bet. We bet on what is played. But we definitely bet - on just about anything.

The American Revolution was partially financed by lotteries. Nevada does not exist without gambling. State governments, desperate for revenue, have backed lotteries for decades and casinos for years.

Serious legal sports betting, however, has been isolated in Nevada. One could make a case that if the federal government legalized sports betting on a national basis over the Internet and taxed it, the national debt could be retired and there would be health care for all.

That is an argument for another time. What is no longer arguable is that, barring a legal setback and if all the equipment is in working order, serious legal sports betting will come to Delaware on Sept. 1. Players will be able to bet on baseball, college football and, the Holy Grail of American sports betting, the NFL. In fact, patrons will be able to bet on just about any games from anywhere in any sport, just as they do in Nevada.

What nobody knows yet is how many people will leave the comfort of their living rooms to drive to one of Delaware's three racetracks (Delaware Park, Dover Downs, Harrington Raceway) to make those bets. With illegal bookmakers just a phone call away and offering credit, how many will want to do this legally, show up with cash and start firing?

"We want to get up and live by Sept. 1, so that everything has run through its trial period before the NFL starts on the 10th," Delaware Park general manager Andrew Gentile said.

Nobody really knows how much traffic will come to the racetracks or how much action will come with that traffic.

"There's a lot of different estimates," said Gentile, who grew up in Washington Township, N.J., went to Washington Township High and The College of New Jersey. "I'm really hoping it's going to be a home run, really bring a lot of excitement to the property, bring in people to play slots. We're getting a lot of phone calls. Just based on the buzz, we're really excited about it.

"I don't know if I could actually give you a dollar amount on it, because nobody on the East Coast has ever had anything like this."

Brandywine Bookmaking, run by University of Delaware and Widener Law School graduate Joe Asher, just won the contract to be the risk managers for Delaware's sports betting operation. Brandywine will partner with Scientific Games, a gaming company based in Mount Laurel, N.J., that will supply the technology.

Brandywine will set the lines. If it sets bad ones, the movement of the money will let it know and it will adjust.

At Delaware Park, the sports-betting windows will be on all three levels, side by side with the parimutuel racing windows. The tellers will wear different shirts for sports and racing. Just as in Nevada, players will be able to bet on single games against the spread. There will be prop bets, future bets, halftime bets, and almost all the other kinds of wagers any sports bettor already understands.

If, say, you want to bet $100 on the Eagles, giving six points to the Redskins, you will have to give the teller $110. If you win, you will get $210 back. If you lose, you lost your bet, including that 10 percent. That 10 percent "vigorish," or "juice," is how so many bookmakers have made a living for so long. If the Eagles win by six, it is a "push" and there is no "winner" on that game. The bettor gets the $110 back.

"There are 30 million people within a 3-hour drive," Asher said, hopefully.

The Delaware State Lottery is the overseer of the sports books. There will be a limit on the amount of money one can bet. The Lottery will have the final say on the limit and will vary by event. Gentile said the limit will be modeled after typical numbers in a Nevada sportsbook and that the initial betting limits on football games will be $10,000 for the NFL and $5,000 for college games. The over/under bets will be $2,000 for the NFL and $1,000 for college games.

Delaware's slot machines have fueled the horse-racing product. Sports betting will do the same.

"My expectation is that sports betting will bring in a different player, and we might actually be able to drive hopefully 10 to 20 percent improvement on our racing handle," Gentile said.

The revenue from sports betting will be divided among the state and the tracks. Scientific Games will get its income from a percentage of the "win," and Brandywine will split that with Scientific Games. Whatever is left will be divided 50-50 among the state and the tracks. Delaware Park's horsemen will get 9.6 percent of the track's share in the form of purses.

So how much are we talking about?