Have you ever played fantasy sports for money? Have you ever participated in your office March Madness pool? Well, if you did, you may have broken federal law, which is quite ridiculous. If you’ve bet on your local jai alai match, though, that was probably safe.
In sports gambling, as is so often the case with many things, the law is not keeping up with our behavior and attitudes. There’s a growing movement to modernizing our gambling laws, including some new coalitions, such as the American Sports Betting Coalition (ASBC), and at least one case pending at the Supreme Court. That case, Christie v. NCAA, is a challenge to the constitutionality of the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act of 1992 (PASPA). Cato supported the petition, which will be discussed by the justices next week.
PASPA outlawed sports betting, with the exception of horse racing and jai alai (obviously), in most states. In classic, horse-trading style, carve outs were made for Oregon, Delaware, Montana, and Nevada. Even worse, the law prohibits states from “authorizing” sports gambling “by law,” which should be regarded as a violation of states’ rights protected by the Tenth Amendment—but the Third Circuit didn’t see it that way. The irony, of course, is that 44 states and 47 jurisdictions (D.C., U.S. Virgin Islands, and Puerto Rico) all have government-run lotteries, because evidently those governments are okay with gambling that benefits their budgets.
By overturning the restrictive federal ban on sports betting, states will be empowered to make their own decision about whether or not to allow it. If states were able to make their own laws about sports betting, areas where it is allowed could see economic growth sparked by increased tourism and an increase in betting-related jobs, as well as other industries springing up around this new frontier of economic possibility. Oxford Economics—one of the world’s leaders in global forecasting and quantitative analysis—has estimated that legal sports betting could add $14 billion to the national economy, generate up to $27 billion in total economic impact, and support 152,000 American jobs. In addition to these economic benefits, overturning such a ban would give states and local law enforcement the ability to oversee legal gambling, thus taking power from dangerous underground gambling rings.
At its root, this is an issue of federalism; people in cities and towns across America should be able to decide for themselves if sports betting is something they want for their communities. Many of them do; nearly 7 in 10 Americans believe that the issue should not be left to the federal government, and 72 percent of avid sports fans support the legalization of sports betting.
Read more at https://www.cato.org/blog/betting-freedom-new-coalition-legalize-sports-gambling
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