Sports Gambling: Part 1
06/04/2023
By: Marissa Kasch
The Road to Legal Sports Gambling
In recent years, sports betting has become a cornerstone of sports viewership across the country. New betting outlets are advertised every day, all claiming to give better odds or more money.
When you think of this increase in sports viewership, you may think of a bunch of fans so dedicated they have matching forehead tattoos. Or maybe it’s the wildest Cinderella story yet (think it’s 12:30 and the carriage is not a pumpkin yet). But surprisingly, these are not the reasons for the uptick in sports viewership. Now more than ever, fans who watch more American Idol than American League are using sports betting apps or websites to tune into games and follow bets they placed on players or teams.
With the variety of sports betting outlets available and its newfound accessibility, it is incredibly easy to bet on virtually anything: the amount of points a player will have, which team will win, how long the national anthem will be played, and even the color of the Gatorade dumped on the coach after a win. In other words, you don’t have to know much about sports to make some quick money off of them. But sports betting hasn’t always been this easy, nor was its road to legality.
The Origins of Sports Betting
The earliest sports bets are presumed to date back to 676 BC. If you’re anything like me, you probably don’t know what was happening during that time. The important thing to note is that this was the time of the 23rd Olympiad, where betting on gladiator fights, chariot races and other Olympic Games started to gain popularity. It was then when patrons realized that they weren’t limited to being passive viewers: They could put their own stake into these games, even though they weren’t Olympians themselves.
Let’s fast forward to something a little more recent: the 19th century. Horse betting was one of the most popular forms of entertainment and sports betting for the rich. Though horse racing is not viewed as one of the most popular sports in America, its reputation for betting is alive and well. In fact, total wagering for the Kentucky Derby broke $400 million for the first time this year with $412 million wagered across all sources. This broke the previous record from the year before ($391.8 million) which shows that the number of people and money involved in sports gambling is increasing each year.
More traditional sports betting took its roots with the introduction of baseball in 1876. Less than one year later, it was already found that baseball games were being influenced by betting. During 1877, the Louisville Grays started to throw games in the name of sports betting. Even as betting began to alter the course of games, the attitude toward gambling was very laid-back. It was so relaxed that even managers were able to place bets on their own teams: In 1894, Chicago Colts manager Cap Anson put $100 on his team finishing with a better season than the Pittsburgh Pirates. As we all know, this didn’t work out so well for Pete Rose.
Despite teams throwing games and managers betting on their own teams, the big scandal in sports betting didn’t come until 1919. Since its start in 1876, sports betting only increased in popularity. Nearly everyone was betting on games in some capacity. That is until sports betting became tainted, for everyone involved.
Wagering Woes & The Black Sox
Baseball’s scandal of 1919 lacks many certainties. Why did they do it? Was it initiated by gamblers or players? How many people were truly involved? What we do know is that it remains to be one of baseball’s most notorious scandals to this day.
So what happened? As the story goes, eight Chicago Black Sox players were bribed to throw the World Series. Unfortunately for baseball fans, the Chicago Black Sox, and sports betters everywhere, the players complied with the bribe and threw the biggest game of the year. Fans were outraged. This was so much more than throwing a few regular season games in the name of money. This was the World Series, the most anticipated game of the year. Many fans felt cheated, saying betting was taking the excitement and mystery out of baseball. It was on baseball’s biggest stage that the name of sports betting was forever altered.
The scandal left many fans upset, shocked, and above all, confused. The Black Sox had one of the highest payrolls in baseball at the time. They were far from underpaid. So why would they need to comply with the bribe? Nevermind complying with the bribe; many believe that the players actually initiated the plan themselves, led by Chick Gandil and Eddie Cicotte. If this was the case, then there was no defense for the players to hide behind. They weren’t young, penniless players who were too gullible to understand what was happening until it was too late. They didn’t get swindled by intelligent masterminds: They were the masterminds.
Though some people began to discourage and condemn sports betting after the scandal, it still remained popular and continued to grow throughout the 20th century despite its illegality. However, it was able to continue under wraps for a considerable amount of time due to ambiguous laws and a lack of law-enforcement presence.
Legalization By States
If you’re thinking about which state first legalized sports betting, don’t worry; it’s not a trick question. Nevada, home to Las Vegas, Caesar’s Sportsbook, and countless casinos, was the first state to legalize sports gambling in 1931.
Other states were not able to hop on that bandwagon so quickly. In fact, the next state to legalize sports betting was Delaware in 2018. You read that right. 87 years later. This was made possible after a 2018 Supreme Court ruling granted states the power to make their own decisions regarding sports betting laws. After the ruling, 20 states legalized sports betting within the next two years.
Current Legality of Sports Betting
Now, here we are in 2023 where 33 states and Washington D.C. offer forms of legal sports betting. It is important to note that, even today, the laws in these states are not carte blanche.
There are still notable restrictions in several states. For example, many states prohibit placing bets on in-state college teams. It is unclear whether these restrictions will be lifted in response to new NIL rules. For a complete list of states that offer legal sports betting, click here.
Although it is only legal in these states as of now, many states are moving toward legalization by showing legislative activity in recent years. Idaho and Wisconsin have not announced any bills to the public yet regarding their position on legalizing (or not legalizing) sports betting. The only state that is highly unlikely to legalize it is Utah, as anti-gambling rhetoric is an integral part of their state history and Constitution. It is illegal to sell lottery tickets or host table games in Utah, so legalizing sports betting would be an arduous process sure to upset many citizens.
The Great Debate
As we all know, gambling is an inherently fixed system. Many who recognize this argue that it is a system set up for the house to win, the rich to get richer, and for all other participants to ultimately lose money. I say ultimately because if people consistently lost money on their first bets, the lure of gambling wouldn’t exist.
As we all know, the cards are stacked in Vegas casinos. Slot machines are calculated to produce wins according to an algorithm. Everything is fixed, and nothing is left to chance. However, sports games are not something that can be carefully set up according to an algorithm. Many people have accused Vegas of rigging games for professional sports leagues. Even if this was true, sports will always have an unpredictable element to them. There is no way to perfectly plan or account for every event that will happen in a sports game. And as I said earlier, you can now bet on every event of a game. Let’s take the NBA for example.
Sports-betting sites allow you to predict the number of points, steals, blocks, or assists that a particular player gets in just the first half of the third quarter. So, you can bet on all of those things for only a six-minute period of the game. Controlling all of these categories for every minute of the game may even be too much for Vegas to manage. So, even if Vegas “rigs” games, they can’t control all aspects as they can in their casinos.
So if Vegas can’t manipulate the games, sports betting is set up to win as long as you know sports, right? I mean if it’s all left to chance of the game then there can’t be any natural loss or risk, right? Wrong. Although sports betting isn’t “rigged”, it’s still definitely not set up to work in your favor.
The Vig – Your Gambling Enemy
Sports-betting companies collect something called the vig from all losing bets. The vig is essentially “the house edge” for sports betting and is how these sites and sportsbooks turn a profit. Sportsbooks set their odds carefully to make more bettors trend toward losing bets so that they will make more money. It is very rare that sports-betting sites will advertise the real odds of a game to bet on; they usually adjust it by a marginal amount. However, this marginal adjustment is typically what allows them to turn an exponential profit from bettors. Again, just like a casino, it is carefully set up for the sportsbook to win and make more money than its bettors.
This setup is the root of longstanding controversy regarding sports betting and gambling in general. The system is carefully crafted to take advantage of those who partake, and some are not able to successfully find their way out. Many argue that putting people in a financial hole is no way to conduct a business ethically while others argue that it is not betting outlets’ fault because people may quit at any time.
Regardless of the ongoing controversy surrounding sports gambling, it has become increasingly popular in recent years. If you need proof of that, just check out the uptick in sports viewership, use of gambling outlets and money spent. With more states moving toward legalization and accessibility, this trend is sure to continue.
Stay Tuned for Part 2 of The Sportsletter’s Analysis & History of Sports Gambling…