FEATURE: SPORTS BETTING USA
SPORTS BETTING STAMPEDE U.S. wagering has fled the barn and won’t be corralled By: David McKee
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t has been 15 months since the Supreme Court of the United States overturned the Bradley Act, making sports betting potentially legal across the land. The sports betting genie is out of the bottle, never to be reconfined. However, expectations that legalized sports wagering would sweep the country have proven somewhat exaggerated. Ten states and the territory of Puerto Rico have joined Nevada in offering live, single-game betting. In the District of Columbia and seven states, wagering is authorized but not yet live, while 18 states are still grappling with legislation of sports betting. Florida and seven other states haven’t even considered it. 20
There is some upside. Writes the American Gaming Association’s Casey Clark, “states and sovereign tribal nations have started to build their own legal, regulated sports betting markets generating $430.2 million industrywide over the last year. This is a dramatic jump from the $261.3 million in revenue generated by Nevada alone in 2017.” (Note: Handle is a far greater sum of money, if a less reliable unit of measurement.)
How did we get here? First, some background. In 1992, the U.S. Congress passed the Professional & Amateur Sports Protection Act (PASPA), also known as the Bradley Act after New Jersey Sen. Bill Bradley, sportsbettingoperator.com