Legal Sports Betting in Casinos: Where is the Law?
Legal Sports Betting in Casinos
So, what states allow sports betting legally in casinos? The first state to legalized sports betting in as many as four states since 2021 has been Delaware, and several other states have quickly followed suit. Nearly half of the American states now allow sports betting from brick and mortar locations, while online sports betting isn’t quite as common as it once was. Sports betting continues to grow in popularity throughout the United States, especially as more states consider legal sports betting as part of the state’s preexisting laws.
Twenty-three states currently allow betting through gambling compacts, which essentially codify and create monopoly protections for the states’ gambling interests. In addition to protecting licensed gambling interests, the leagues and teams that represent teams also protect their own interests by preventing competition from the sports betting market. Gambling compacts are often created by governing bodies composed of politicians, businessmen, and/or sports gambling industry members. This means that there is generally little, if any, opposition to a sports betting regulation when it comes to these three groups. However, the legislature can generally be expected to enact bills that benefit these industries at the expense of the average citizen.
The second way in which many states treat sports betting in casinos remains illegal. Though most Americans have access to online gambling, only a very small portion of them actively gamble online. In most states, the law considers online gambling to be prohibited activity, and therefore any action related to online gambling, including the creation of new gambling sites, is considered to be in violation of the law. This includes, among other things, the placement of signs promoting online gambling at a certain location. This remains illegal, regardless of the existence of a state lottery, despite the fact that the federal government has allowed for the regulation of online gambling for decades.
Legal Sports Betting in Casinos: Where is the Law?
Finally, online sports betting remains illegal in many states because the majority of states have not yet enacted appropriate laws to address the issues that surround sports betting. Most states still have archaic or inadequate laws governing the operation of sports betting sites, allowing for long periods of unbridled gambling by unlicensed sports bettors. These laws are typically so old that they are useless in today’s legal environment. Moreover, most of these statutes only regulate the type of software that licensed sports betting sites must use. There is very little regulation of the actual bookmaking process used by sports betting sites.
A number of states have taken measures to address these issues in recent years, however, in general, none of these measures have gone very far. For example, in January of 2021, the Florida House of Representatives passed a bill that would have regulated all sports betting software, but no local Internet gambling license was required for implementation. Likewise, in 2021, the California State Legislature passed a bill that, if approved by the state’s residents, would require all online gambling companies to get a state license before they could publish a state-wide sports betting app. In the meantime, however, several California state representatives introduced bills that would impose a cap on the amount of money that an individual player could wager on any single game.
Therefore, it is up to you to do some due diligence to ensure that you are doing business with legal sports betting apps. First of all, ask the company what type of gaming license they hold. Typically, there will be some sort of certification issued by the local gambling authority that verifies the company’s status as a legitimate business. Secondly, visit the website of the State Gambling Control Commission and search for the requirements that each state has for its licensed sports betting sites. In addition, always remember that when you are taking part in live casino sports betting, you are legally responsible for any losses, damages or deductions that you incur during the game. In the same respect, don’t bet more than you can afford to lose!