Supreme Court officially allows sports gambling across the nation
The U.S. Supreme Court made a move on Monday that will loosen the monopolistic grip Nevada has had on sports gambling.
In a potentially monumental decision, the Supreme Court struck down a federal law that effectively required states to ban gambling on sports outcomes.
Of note, the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act was always a strange law, according to NBC News. It never explicitly outlawed sports gambling on a federal level, but it prohibited states from engaging in it.
The one glaring exception to that law was Nevada, which was grandfathered in when PASPA was passed in 1992.
Now, Nevada will no longer enjoy such exclusive rights.
New Jersey and several other states are ready to move to offer sports gambling in the wake of the court’s decision.
“[The issue with PASPA is that] state legislatures are put under the direct control of Congress,” Justice Samuel Alito wrote on the behalf of the majority.
Alito, and by extension the Supreme Court, felt that PASPA exerted undue congressional control over states.
“A more direct affront to state sovereignty is not easy to imagine,” Alito wrote.
New Jersey was the impetus for the issue of sports gambling reaching the Supreme Court.
Then-Gov. Chris Christie argued that PASPA violated the 10th Amendment by forcing states to carry out federal mandates through federal law. Christie contended that PASPA hijacked state legislatures by forcing them to prohibit sports gambling.
New Jersey wants to allow “limited” forms of sports gambling and collect taxes from it.
“I know that we don’t know much about organized crime coming from New Jersey. But we know a little bit. And the fact is that organized crime is involved in profiting from [sports gambling] every day,” Christie argued. He said people engaged in $150 billion in illegal sports gambling.
Christie was trumpeting a frequent point that sports gambling supporters made. Supporters argue that legalized sports gambling, in addition to weakening organized crime’s influence, also can discourage reckless gambling by putting the issue into the state’s hands instead of mobsters’.
One rather significant sporting event that the Supreme Court ruling could impact would be March Madness.
The American Gaming Association estimated that nearly $10 billion was wagered over the 2018 NCAA men’s basketball tournament. Of that number, a mere 3 percent was bet legally through Nevada. For those who don’t like math, that’s about $9.7 billion wagered illegally.
“Our current sports betting laws are so out of touch with reality that we’re turning tens of millions of Americans into criminals for the simple act of enjoying college basketball,” said Geoff Freeman, CEO of the American Gaming Association.
Those numbers say nothing about gambling involving fantasy sports.
Of course, the Supreme Court ruling extends far beyond just college sports. The NFL and MLB have long been apprehensive of opening the floodgates to legalized sport gambling. The NBA has been opposed to it as well, although Commissioner Adam Silver has been far more receptive to it than his predecessor, David Stern.
In fairness, the NBA is uniquely qualified to have major concerns, considering the 2007 betting scandal involving referee Tim Donaghy. A corrupt referee is about as damning of an indictment that a professional sports league can have.
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