The Biggest Losers and Winners of Sports Betting Over the History
The 1992 federal law banned state-sponsored betting in the US. However, the law was struck down in 2018 by the Supreme Court ruling. From then on, individual states were free to legalize sports betting within their jurisdictions. The states were the greatest winners of this legalization. There were other winners and several losers, though.
The Biggest Winners:
The US states
Due to the enactment of the federal law of 1992, the US states could not legalize gambling. Some of the states, such as Michigan, have been operating Daily Fantasy sports contests since 2006. When the court ruled in favor of the states, MI online sports betting was made legal within one year.
Retail sportsbooks, however, didn’t open until March 2020. Online gambling had to wait until 2021, and people wagered $100 million in the first ten days. New Jersey had been fighting to legalize sports betting for six years. Governor Phil Murphy had signed the legalization bill within a few weeks after the historic Supreme Court ruling.
The gaming industry
The American Gaming Association (AGA) has pushed for sports betting legalization for many years. It was a big win for the gaming industry, and it was the beginning of a new wave of online casinos. Whether playing poker, baccarat, slot games, or roulette, gamblers no longer needed to make long journeys to traditional casinos. Today, there are almost 3,000 online betting sites in the US where gamblers can wager on sports and other casino games.
Gamblers
After the historic ruling, gamblers counted themselves as the luckiest people in America. Most of them desired to gamble, but they could not because land-based casinos were far from their locations. Today, 46% of American adults place sports bets at one time or another. This translates to 106 million adult Americans, and the numbers are growing daily.
The Biggest Losers:
Offshore sports betting companies
Before the legalization of sports betting in the states, sports fans would open betting accounts offshore. The companies were big losers because many Americans closed their offshore betting accounts and opened new accounts with legal US sports betting casinos.
Las Vegas City
Las Vegas City was a major beneficiary of the 1992 PASPA law, Assembly Bill 98 of 1931, and the legalization law of 1949. These laws favored Las Vegas and sidelined other cities. The 2018 ruling was a major blow to Vegas because it allowed all other cities to establish sports betting facilities after legalization by their state governments.
The federal government
The federal government established the PASPA act of 1992 and banned sports betting across the states. It was a big loser when the Supreme Court overturned the ruling. There have been efforts to legalize sports betting at the federal level but not much success has been recorded.
