Legalization Of Sports Gambling In The United States

Currently, under United States federal law, gambling is technically legal. However, each individual state is given the power to regulate or prohibit gambling as they please within their borders. As a result, the only states that allow sports betting are Nevada, Oregon, Delaware, and Montana (Waldron). Due to the illegality of sports betting in other states, America’s sports gambling prohibition is responsible for one world’s largest black market for sports betting. The amount that is legally bet on sports in Las Vegas is nearly $4 billion. However, an estimated $80 billion to $380 billion is wagered illegally through a shadow industry of offshore online betting houses, office pools and neighborhood bookmakers (Hobson). The cyclic nature of
legislation regarding prohibition of sports betting and gambling in general is interesting because there is a recurring pattern: legalization, scandal, then prohibition. The cycle starts with gambling being legal, eventually, a scandal occurs when someone tries to take advantage of the system. Then, officials would make a ban against gambling, due to outrage over this scandal. This ban would last for a lengthy period of time, until a newly-elected official arrived. The newly-elected official quickly becomes desperate for cash and seeks to generate revenue through gambling. In these instances, the type of gambling was normally lotteries (Hobson). This is due to the fact that lotteries were known as a way to make a lot of money quickly. Then, over time different states made different laws regarding which types of gambling were considered legal. The past problems with gambling has made the issue of its legalization rather controversial. Without the practice of sports betting being legal, many issues have arisen, most of which surround the fact that it has created such a massive, unregulated black market. However, if the sports betting black market does become regulated, not only would the nation benefit in an economic sense, but it would also improve the lives of the many people that are negatively affected by this practice. And while improving many people’s quality of life, the regulation of sports betting will also increase the engagement and integrity of many sports that people know and love. However, with so many different laws regarding different types of sports betting in different states, a black market will continue to exist. That is why legislation is necessary on a national level. Every citizen must be held to the same standards and sports betting must be fully legalized for any issues to be removed. For these reasons, it is clearly in our nation’s best interest to legalize the practice of sports betting. On a more personal note, the reason why I think that sports betting should become legal is that my brother and his friends very frequently bet on sports games and though my brother does not have a serious issue now, the way that sports betting works, he would very easily gain an addiction and make decisions that impact his future. But, I believe that with the legality of sports betting will come intense regulation and in turn, my brother will be at less of a risk to negatively impact his future.
One of the reasons why the legalization of sports gambling is logical is because it would help in an economic sense. As noted before, between $80 billion and $380 billion a year is illegally wagered on sporting events. However, because all of this money is being handled illegally, the only people benefiting are the ones who are breaking the law. If this practice were to be legalized, the entire country could reap the benefits. Nevada is currently the only state permitted to operate full sports books and is also infamous for its gambling and casinos (Waldron). However, the gambling in Las Vegas has led to impressive job growth, has developed Las Vegas into a major city with minimal tax burden, and has sparked significant private and public sector investment (“Economic Impacts of Gambling”). Not all of this is directly due to just sports betting, as there are also a large number of casinos; but if you were to multiply the effect that legal sports betting has now by ten times, so that it is equivalent to the amount of money that is being illegally wagered, there would be quite the noticeable effect on the economy. The number of jobs that would be created and the amount of tax revenue that would be generated clearly hint that the legalization of sports betting would help the economy. The sports betting market is so large and deals with so much money that the United States should be able to gain something out a practice that will continue regardless of whether or not it becomes legal.
Another reason why the legalization of sports betting is necessary is because at this point in time, regulation is necessary. There are far too many instances in which a gambler risks his entire life fortune and his family consequently suffers. As Professor Wolfers, of the University of Michigan, noted, “There's no lobby group to protect the families whose lives would be devastated by Mom or Dad becoming a compulsive gambler.” When the issue of gambling is discussed, people rarely mention how to help gamblers. However, Wolfers mentioned that by legalizing sports betting, the government can regulate it in a way that will provide protection to those people who are at risk to lose everything that they have (5 voices). There is a large portion of the population that is addicted to gambling, and people don’t generally recognize that there are affected people that are innocent in the matter. Through regulation, these people can be protected. Similarly, if there is regulation, the activity of sports betting will become more clean. More legitimate ways to bet on sports will insure match fixing won’t occur as much. In turn, people won’t wrongly lose money that they can’t afford to lose when matches are fixed, and gambling will have minimal effects on the way the sport is plated (“Wagering on the future”).
This can be expanded further on the idea that the legalization and regulation of sport betting will decrease the number of matches that are fixed. The main issue with match fixing at the moment is the concept of a point spread. This is basically the number that a team has to win by more than or the number that a team has to lose by more or less than. This becomes very problematic in terms of match fixing. If someone has a lot riding on the point spread, then they are more likely to diminish the integrity of the sport at hand by trying to have the match thrown. Wolfers also suggested that regulation would put a stop to this, “There are ways that we can set up gambling markets that lend themselves less well to corruption, like limiting betting to which team will win instead of which team will beat the spread. That reduces the incentive for corruption.”. Also, by legalizing and regulating sports betting, the general public’s awareness about sports betting would be increased, thereby helping to prevent match fixing. More generally, a raised awareness by the public would help highlight any impropriety at any point before, during, or after a sporting event (Ma). Not only would the general public help to decrease the number of matches fixed, but casinos would help too. For example, On March 5, 1994, a casino in Las Vegas noticed an uncharacteristic amount of money generated from bets on a game. Compared to the normal $50,000 in gambling activity, the casinos noticed $1 million in activity for the Arizona State basketball game. This lead to bookmakers alerting the FBI, who eventually uncovered a point-shaving scandal involving players, a bookie and gamblers from Chicago (Hobson). If gambling were to become legal and regulated, situations like this would occur much more often and the number of matches that are fixed would decline significantly.
Another reason why the legalization of sports betting would benefit the US is that it would increase the way that we can engage in sports.
When discussing the limits associated with a game, the physical boundaries associated with baseball was raised. These boundaries make it so that baseball has a unique type of engagement. Due to the fact that fans are able to catch foul balls, there is a whole new level of interaction with the game. Fans are actively and attentively watching the game in hopes that they can catch a ball (Limits Discussion 2/6/17). This is a type of engagement that is unparalleled in other sports. If sports betting is legalized in the US, another type of engagement with the sport will be introduced. A widely-believed reason as to why people bet on games is because they want to be engaged and invested (Roberts). This will make it so that baseball is not the only sport that offers such a unique type of engagement. Often, when a fan is watching the game of a team that they do not root for, that fan is not as engaged. However, betting creates a situation where even if you don’t have an emotional investment with a team, you’ll still want to watch the match. Additionally, there are many teams that don’t have large enough fan bases to sell all of the tickets to their games. By introducing this new type of engagement, the teams that are unable to do so will
benefit. However, as noted earlier, this is a very controversial topic and many people do not agree with the idea that sports betting should become legal. One of the main arguments as to why sports betting should remain illegal is that sports will become too commercialized. Ryan Rodenburg, an Assistant Professor of Sports Law at Florida State University has argued this in the past, “Like fantasy's emphasis on player outcomes, sports betting will continue to shift sporting events from competition between teams and players to a commercialized spectacle.” However, the legalization of sports gambling will not alter the number of that are actually going to make bets. From the numbers, it is clear that sports betting has a huge market. It’s easy enough to bet now, when it’s illegal, that the number of people won’t increase once it’s legalized. As Charles Barkley, a Hall of Famer and a known gambler, said “People who bet on sports are going to bet regardless. Only if you bet already are you going to bet on it when it's legal.” If the number of people in the gambling market doesn’t increase, then the shift from competition to a commercialized spectacle won’t be any more significant than it already has been. Additionally, after the introduction of media, sports became so commercialized, which is evident when comparing a Super Bowl before media coverage was huge versus this year’s past Super Bowl (Colas). Sports have been so commercialized that the legalization of gambling will likely have a minimal effect on the already significant amount of commercialization that sports have faced. The legalization of sports betting is not likely to have as many negative effects as people expect due to the fact that illegal sports betting is already so prominent.
Most of the benefits of the legalization relate to the fact that sports betting is such a large black market and by simply regulating it, the nation can see benefits in the economy, fewer people will be destroyed by gambling mistakes, the integrity of sporting events will increase, and fans will see a new type of engagement emerge. The United States is in a critical period for the legalization of sports betting with the move of the Raiders to Las Vegas and both the MLB and the NBA making statements on behalf of the legalization. In this imperative time, it is crucial that lawmakers see the potential benefits of legalizing sport betting and realize how much it can help the
US.