by Chris Allen
How hard is it to make the case for
legalized online sports betting? It shouldn’t be very hard, at least it
shouldn’t be if you decide to use a little common sense.
Legalize it! Regulate it! Tax it!
Recently Governor Chris Christie
launched an effort to allow legalized sports gambling in New Jersey casinos
which is currently illegal under the federal law called the Professional and
Amateur Sports Protection Act it currently limits sports betting to four
states: Nevada, Delaware, Oregon and Montana.
Betting on Sports in Nevada is legal
and it generates about 140 million dollars in profits with about 2.8 Billion
wagered yearly and that figure has been declining for the last few years. So
one has to wonder if people just are not betting on sports anymore or are
people just betting less? Well the answer is neither. The actual number of
people betting on sports has dramatically increased in the last few decades.
In 2011 2.88 Billion dollars was
legally wagered in Nevada Sports Books, In the 1990’s a study by National
Gambling Impact Study Commission (NGISC) estimated that illegal wagers are as
much as $380 billion annually. The Interactive Media Entertainment & Gaming
Association, an online gambling association pushing for Internet betting to be
legalized in New Jersey, says that figure now around 500 Billion Dollars
annually!
I live in Las Vegas, Nevada so I can
place a bet on a sporting event just about anytime I want, do you honestly
think that if I lived in any other city in the US I couldn’t find a place to
bet? Simply walk into most local sports bars in major cities and within minutes
you could find a place to make a bet!
If you can’t find a local “bookie”
to place bets with people can always turn to offshore betting on the Internet
(that despite recent crackdowns) still cater to American customers and take
their American Dollars into their own local economies! I’m not an economist but
if we could keep hundreds of Billions of dollars flowing here in the USA and
not overseas that can’t be a bad thing, not to mention the taxes for the
federal and state treasuries.
Forty-Three states, the District of
Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the US Virgin Islands now have some form of lottery.
Surprisingly Nevada and Mississippi do not have lotteries, but do have casino
gambling. Alabama, Alaska, Hawaii, Utah, and Wyoming don’t have any lotteries
or gambling. So you can gamble legally (in some way) in forty-five states! The
issue of whether Americans can accept well regulated and taxed sports gambling
online has already been decided now it’s time for politicians to catch up with
the rest of us!
Legalize it! Regulate it! Tax it!
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