Sports Gambling Explodes: Is it a Blessing or Curse?

Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis is undoubtedly spinning in his grave. The man hired as the commissioner of Major League Baseball to clean up and save the sport after the ruinous 1919 Black Sox scandal – in which players took bribes to deliberately sabotage their team in the World Series – would hardly have believed what has happened one century later. Baseball, football, basketball, boxing, and a host of other sports are not only allowing but actively encouraging and sponsoring legalized gambling. To say times have changed when it comes to placing legal wagers would be a drastic understatement.

These days, a practice once confined mostly to Las Vegas has exploded across the land following a Supreme Court decision in 2018 overturning a national ban on betting outside Nevada. Platforms such as Caesar’s Sportsbook and FanDuel jumped in the deep end for what has quickly evolved into a $10 billion industry, raking in the bucks from bettors in 38 states (plus DC) where legislatures have legalized retail or online and mobile sportsbooks.

This exponential growth of gambling – $30 billion in legal sports wagers were placed in just the third quarter of 2024 – obviously creates self-evident opportunities for bribery and fixing. Superstar Pete Rose was permanently barred from MLB after betting on his team back in 1989. And while there have been precious few instances since then of players caught betting on games in their own sport, the Senate Judiciary Committee is wary of the potential for corruption. After previous attempts to legislate gambling at the federal level failed, the committee held a two-hour hearing on Dec. 17 to reconsider federal regulation addressing the potential problems in both professional and quasi-amateur sports such as college football and basketball.

Charlie Baker, president of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), which now permits its athletes to get paid for use of their name, image, and likeness (NIL) – after outlawing payments to them for decades – “told the committee that there had been an increase in reports of integrity concerns and betting-related harassment of college athletes and coaches as legalized sports betting had spread across the country,” as reported by The New York Times. Baker expressed particular concern about so-called prop-bets, or proposition bets, on individual performance – e.g., will Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Pat Mahomes throw for more or less than 300 yards? – and on in-game bets where the odds change minute to minute. Many local broadcasters even promote gambling by advertising betting lines in the midst of games.

Is Sports Gambling Harmless or Harmful?

So, is the practice of easy wagering harmless or harmful? Does it represent just an exciting add-on for sports aficionados or a slippery slope that could bankrupt people or ruin the integrity of spectator sports? After all, if a gambling scandal is uncovered in a single sport, it will likely metastasize and force bettors and non-bettors alike to reconsider their fandom in sports across the board. Will easy one-click bets inevitably create a fresh generation of addicted gamblers? The National Council on Problem Gambling estimates that some 2.5 million adults suffer from a severe gambling problem and that another 5-8 million could be classified as mildly or moderately troubled gamblers.

Sure, the increasingly ubiquitous ads for these sports betting platforms throw in a pro forma mention of helplines for addicted gamblers, but they resemble the disclaimers at the tail end of ads for prescription drugs treating everything from diabetes to diarrhea. After touting the wonders of their cure-all remedies, they throw in a warning in a muted voice, speeding through the multiple side effects that could be anything from nausea to death.

But even among those not technically addicted to gambling, how many pie-in-the-sky bettors will undermine their financial health or that of their families? At the same time, there is a reasonable counter-argument: Is betting on baseball or football any different from state lotteries or gambling on horse racing, which have been legal for decades?

Any industry that serves or affects millions of people is bound to generate governmental scrutiny. But as the old saw goes, be very careful when you are told, “We’re from the government and we’re here to help you.” Should the national government intervene, and if it does, will federal regulation of legalized sports gambling ultimately make things better or worse?