Betting on professional sports and college sports games is very popular in the United States. There can be little doubt that tens of billions of dollars are wagered on these games each year. Most of the betting action is illegal. Only Nevada permits wagers on individual games, and the Oregon lottery allows players to wager on sports cards that require them to bet on at least four games on a single card – meaning they have to pick all four winners in order to have a winning bet. Delaware had authorized a similar system for betting on national football for several years starting in 1976. Montana permits private sports pools to be operated in taverns. The tavern organizes the pool, but all betting is among the players, who retain all of the prizes.
Several public officials expressed concern over a rising level of sports betting in the United States during the 1980s and early 1990s. The concern was attached to the fact that over a dozen states were entertaining prospects of legalizing the betting on games. One concerned official was U.S. senator Bill Bradley (D-New Jersey), who had been a star player in the National Basketball Association on the world championship New York Knickerbockers team. He deplored sports gambling, fearing that it would draw children into gambling activity as younger people were more attracted to games. He also saw the wagering as harmful to the honesty of the games, as sports betting could lead to attempts to bribe players to try to alter the results of games in ways favorable to certain bettors. The public confidence in the integrity of the games was in jeopardy.
In February 1991, legislation was introduced in the U.S. Senate to block the expansion of publicly authorized sports betting. The bill was signed into law as the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act by Pres. George Bush on 28 October 1992.
The law provides that no government entity may sponsor or authorize or otherwise promote any lottery or gambling scheme based in any way upon the results of one or more competitive games in which amateur or professional athletes participate. The four states with existing authorizations for sports betting – Nevada, Delaware, Oregon, and Montana – were exempt from the act’s provision. Also, New Jersey’s standing as the second state with large casinos was recognized, and the state was given until the end of 1993 to legalize sports betting in Atlantic City casinos if it desired to do so. When 1 January 1994 came, New Jersey had not legalized sports betting for the casinos, so the law’s effect is to prohibit sports betting in forty-six states. The act does not apply to horse-race or dog-race betting or to as pari-mutuel betting on games of Jai Alai.
|
|