Sports Betting
The Over Under On Legal or Illegal Sports Betting One of the oldest games around is to wager money on another sport taking place to gamble and hopefully gain back revenue from that risk. Some see it as wrong and some have no issue with it, which is creating a strong amount of conflict when dealing with such a large issue as sports betting has become. There are many sports to wager on but the goal is the same for every gambler and that is to win big time. Although there are many motives to be pro gambling such as, taking the money from criminal’s hands into legal safe ways or to gain an economic boost from the large amounts of money that could be drawn in, there are still anti gambling supporting the ideas that it could and has damaged the integrity of the game. One of the viewpoints that people hold is that if sports betting was legalized it would greatly increase the amount of economic growth by large amounts of legal betting money being spent because it would no longer be left out of the market. The economic growth could be substantial and beneficial to America as this article states would and should be allowed to occur. The author is drawn to the idea of legalizing the betting because it is grounded in the idea of a economic boost from the revenue pulled out of legal safe ways to gamble. With having only a small percentage of money coming in from gambling if it was legalized, “the total estimated $380 billion (yes, billion!) wagered illegally, untaxed, and unregulated to offshore operations on sporting events” ( Lesniak 15) could be brought into the economy benefiting the nation as a whole. One thing that could also affect the entire nation is if the integrity of the games were damaged because of shady and illegal betting on sports affecting the final scores on games. The viewpoint is taken because if the integrity of sports is damaged then it hurts thousands of fans who watch and spend money on something that is a flux. Donald L. Barlett believes that
Cited: Barlett, L. Donald and Steele, B. “THROWING THE GAME.” Time (9/25/2000): 52. Academic Search Complete. Web. 1 Mar. 2013.
Lesniak, J. Raymond and Bernal, Les. “Should Sports Betting Be Legal?” U.S. News Digital Weekly. (6/22/2012): 15. Academic Search Complete. Web. 1 Mar. 2013.
Surowiecki, James. “A Call to Action.” New Yorker (2/11/2013): 1. Academic Search Complete. Web. 1 Mar. 2013.