David Purdum, ESPN Chalk
After decades of holding the line, the NCAA and the four major professional sports leagues finally lost their battle against the spread of legal sports betting in the United States.
The Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act of 1992 (PASPA) — the federal sports betting statute preventing any state outside of Nevada from taking a bet on a game — died of natural Supreme Court causes one year ago, just after 10 a.m. ET on May 14, 2018.
In that short year, seven states (in addition to Nevada) have allowed widespread legal sports betting and together have taken in nearly $8 billion in bets. Montana, Indiana, Iowa and Washington, D.C., have passed legalization bills within the past few days, and several states — including New York — are poised to be next. By 2024, nearly 70 percent of states are expected to offer legal sports betting.
It’s a monumental moment in American sports and already has produced some incredible scenes and storylines:
• Three prominent sports commissioners — the NBA’s Adam Silver, the NHL’s Gary Bettman and Major League Baseball’s Rob Manfred — have appeared with the CEO of one of the largest sportsbook operators in the nation to announce partnerships.
• Two NFL owners entered last season with financial stakes, albeit de minimis ones, in DraftKings — the fantasy giant-turned-bookmaker, which is taking bets on their respective teams.
• Fox Sports announced last week that it will launch a sports betting app and begin taking bets this fall — the biggest move so far by media companies increasingly taking an interest in the industry. ESPN and Fox Sports 1 have already launched daily shows around sports betting.
• Sports betting has been at the center of discussion of several huge sporting moments over the past year (Todd Gurley’s kneel-down, Tiger Woods winning the Masters, the Kentucky Derby disqualification, James Holzhauer’s “Jeopardy!” run, among others), raising its profile even further.
Even given these remarkable developments for the majority of U.S. bettors, not much has changed in how — and with whom — they place their wagers. The offshore and local sportsbook industry remains strong, and larger states such as California and Illinois have been unable to make substantial progress.
“The big story of the year? Sports betting is proving slightly harder to get done than many people — myself included — thought it would be in the aftermath of PASPA,” Chris Grove, managing director of research firm Eilers & Krejcik Gaming, told ESPN. “Chalk that up to the failure of leagues and gambling stakeholders to get fully on the same page, and to the fact that the size of the sports betting opportunity is exacerbating internal industry cracks in the gambling industry.”
Here’s what we’ve learned over the first year of legalized sports betting in the U.S.
Rest is here…https://www.espn.com/chalk/story/_/id/26740441/one-year-legal-us-sports-betting-learned
