Mark Ford optimistic about Sports Betting

It is now up to individual states to pass legislation permitting betting on baseball, basketball, American football, ice hockey and other sports. Around the country, other leagues are gathering this month and – for most – the possibility of legalized sports gambling where their member institutions are located will be a major topic.

“But it will likely be affiliated with those three gambling towns and the casinos that already exist in those towns”, O’Keefe.

At MGM Grand Las Vegas, a bookmaker takes bets on sports events at the round counter at the Race & Sports Book near the casino.

With the legalization and taxation of marijuana, video gaming, expanding the number of casinos, allowing fantasy league sports betting, installing slot machines at the state’s dwindling number of horseracing tracks and now legal sportsbooks, IL should be flush with revenue in coming years. Because with an increasing number of states introducing and enacting sports betting laws, the future may be upon us sooner than we think. For all the worries about the state of the sport, Keeneland continues to attract strong crowds and 157,813 showed up for this year’s Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs on a day of record rainfall in Louisville.

In a 6-3 ruling May 14, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a 1992 law that prevented state authorization of sports gambling. Through efficient regulation, there will be new protections for consumers, preservation of sporting integrity and new revenue for states and sporting bodies, he said.

There’s also precedent: For 30 years, southern Vermont had legal parimutuel betting, first on thoroughbred horses, then on greyhounds, at Green Mountain Racetrack in Pownal. That has sparked criticism about money leaving Kentucky, but casino gambling hasn’t advanced in recent years, and Gov. Matt Bevin is opposed. “The Supreme Court’s decision today paves the way to an entirely different landscape – one in which we have not previously operated”, the National Hockey League said in a statement. If you want to believe what Mark Cuban says, the rich are now going to be even richer.

But Bill Lance, secretary of commerce for the Chickasaw Nation, which runs the Riverwind and WinStar casinos, told The Norman Transcript earlier this week that his tribe wants to work with the state to facilitate sports betting.

A bill pending in the MA legislature would permanently legalize and regulate online fantasy sports and create a special commission to conduct a “comprehensive study” of online sports betting.

Does the ruling help or hurt horse racing?

Good news no doubt for investors, but it will take time.

“If we win sports wagering, online gaming will go to every state that adopts sports betting”, David Rebuck, director of the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement, previously told the Associated Press. Industry website Equibase hasn’t tracked attendance since the mid-1990s, but it has been dropping.

“It’s not yet for sure, but in the best case scenario, we could have sports betting up and running by the time football season starts in late August”, he said.

Hall of Fame trainer Bob Baffert’s previous Derby victor, American Pharoah, created a buzz three years ago in becoming the sport’s first Triple Crown champion since 1978. And discussion of point spreads, over/unders and prop bets could become more common among broadcasters and journalists as they seek to remain relevant to how fans are thinking about sports.

The Garden State’s own Representative Frank Pallone’s GAME Gaming Accountability and Modernization Enhancement (GAME) Act – which was reintroduced in December 2017 – provides regulatory measures for underage gambling and gambling addiction. On top of that, they have military service, so they are a bit more desperate to get money.

Proposed legislation formally legalizing sports wagering in the state won’t be voted on until the June 7 session of the state Senate, Sweeney said. Now those online operators are only too glad to change their tune and abide by the new Supreme Court ruling.

“No license to operate a sports pool shall be issued … to any person that operated a sports pool within one year prior to the enactment of this act.”

AGA President Geoff Freeman described the high court’s opinion as “a victory for the millions of Americans who seek to bet on sports in a safe and regulated manner”. And people still find their way to Vegas in droves.