Sports Betting Legal Across US After Supreme Court Decision: Is That Good News?

Sports Betting Legal Across US After Supreme Court Decision. Is That Good News?

The decision taken in May 2018 by the supreme court to legalise betting on sports across the US has caused lots of controversies. Is this good news for the US?

The supreme court ruled 6-3 to put an end to the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act. The act that was created in 1992 banned sports gambling apart from exceptions like Nevada which was the only state where a person in the US could have placed a bet on the results of a single sports event.

Now that a few months have gone by since that decision, CasinoBiggestBonus.com is revealing research that shows 32 states are likely to legalise sports betting in the next 5 years.

“Legalising sports gambling is an important policy choice and each state will be free to act as they will. We all know the tax pie is enormous when gambling is involved, so it is not surprising to see that the majority of states are not willing to miss that. It will be important though those proper regulations will be put in place to protect children and also vulnerable individuals from potential gambling problems”, said CasinoBiggestBonus CEO when presenting the findings of the study.

New Jersey has been fighting for years to legalise sports and casinos gambling and finally, they have succeeded. Not surprisingly they have been the first state to go legal accepting bets shortly after the decision of the supreme court.

All the major US professional sports leagues are concerned about sports betting being legalised in most parts of the country. During the case in court, the NFL, NBA, NHL and MLB all said that New Jersey’s gambling expansion would cause troubles to the integrity of their games. Even though that was the official view, it is known that outside court leaders of all except the NFL have shown to be a lot more open to the opportunity which eventually will bring more money into the sports.

It is a fact that gambling is already going on in the US: the American Gaming Association has estimated that illegal wagers on sports are about $150bn every single year.

It is therefore quite clear why New Jersey has been spending millions of dollars on legal fees in the last few years trying to legalise sports betting in their gambling venues and racetracks. Already in 2012 New Jersey lawmakers passed a law to allow sports betting and directly challenged the 1992 federal law which was clearly stated that states were not allowed to ‘authorise by law’ sports betting. In that case, the four major professional sports leagues and also the NCAA sued the state and won in court.

In 2014 New Jersey tried again arguing that its laws off the books were saying something different than authorising sports gambling: in that case, the state lost again but took the case to the supreme court.

It would be interesting to see how the situation will evolve however it is clear that the gate is now open and most states will look at the opportunity to increase their tax revenues and in the same time try to reduce illegal gambling which is widely popular across the US.