Sports betting is once again on the rise in the United States ever since the Supreme Court termed that the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (PASPA) of 1992 unconstitutional. PASPA has been the main reason why sports betting can’t be expanded in the country for the longest time.
Only four states were exempted from this law because of pre-existing laws that enable them to offer local betting services. The four states that have always had legal betting were Nevada, Oregon, Montana, and Delaware.
The push for the legalization of sports betting mainly started with New Jersey challenging PASPA. They did this because the state already wanted to regulate betting locally. This motivated the Supreme Court to take a look at PASPA and eventually strike it down in May 2018.
Since then, many states, including New Jersey, immediately worked on legalizing local betting. Aside from New Jersey, states like Mississippi, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island all signed betting into law in the same year.
Last year, New York, Indiana, Illinois, and Tennessee also signed betting into law. Currently, there are now 20 states that already did this, but many of them are still in the process of establishing rules and regulations.
States that are expected to launch sports betting this year include Illinois, Colorado, and Michigan. States like Kentucky and Maryland are expecting to sign betting into law as bills are still to be discussed regarding its legislation in these states.
Now, the push for the legislation of betting is important because it can greatly affect the economy of the United States.
The Oxford Economics research made on behalf of the American Gaming Association shows that legal sports betting can contribute at least 22.4 billion US dollars to the gross domestic products. States that have legalized betting are expected to gain revenues that are worth 7 to 15 percent of the taxes. This can easily be worth over 3 billion dollars annually.
Before PASPA was decriminalized, studies only predicted that legal sports betting would only bring in around 11 billion US dollars for each state annually, but this estimate has been greatly surpassed. By the end of 2018, the industry already brought in over 430 million dollars of revenue to the US. This is double the amount of what the country had in 2016.
Based on the rulings that some states already have regarding the tax revenues that will be made from betting, the majority will go to government reliefs and efforts. Some states have allotted the tax revenues towards education and state improvement projects.
Currently, the majority of the revenues made by the states that have already launched betting are from the online and mobile sectors of the industry. People are just really keener to place their bets online and on sites like CasiniaBet. Betenemy has a review on the CasiniaBet mobile app to know more about it. The rise of mobile technology is definitely impacting the industry.
This is why online or mobile betting is already included in the bills that are to be discussed by states that have not yet signed betting into law. The state of New York is having a hard time when it comes to getting the expected revenue.
This is because New York has only allowed in-person betting. Most of the casinos and sportsbooks in the state are located upstate and it’s simply not convenient for the punters. This is why New Yorkers are still choosing to place their bets online.
It’s still New Jersey that is benefitting from this. New York has only earned over 7 million US dollars by the end of 2019 and that is definitely far from how much states like New Jersey and Pennsylvania have been getting from this activity.
Meanwhile, the state of Tennessee is doing things differently by only allowing online betting in the state. Online betting was signed into law by the state of Tennessee in April 2019. Until now, this hasn’t been launched yet, but they are hoping to have it in time for March Madness.
With how the US is already doing in terms of revenue, it’s no longer impossible that this market would compete with the UK market where betting is huge and legal. It is estimated that the US will actually top the annual betting revenue of the UK in the next five years.
It is also predicted that by 2024, 40 states will already allow the local operations of sports betting. This means that about 50 percent of the American population will be able to place their bets locally.
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