If you like to gamble at your favorite local casino on slots and table games (and who doesn’t) I bet you wish you could place a bet on the World Series or the Super Bowl there as well. I know I do.
Unfortunately, that isn’t likely to happen any time soon. Under the 1992 Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (PASPA), sometimes called the Bradly Act, Federal law made sports wagering illegal in all states except Nevada, Delaware, Oregon, and Montana. These four states were all grandfathered in because of wording in their state legislation allowing sports gambling at the time. New Jersey could have been added to that list. The state was given an eighteen month window to legalize sports betting and become the fifth state covered under the law, but it let its opportunity pass without acting. Regretting their missed opportunity, NJ repeatedly filed suit over the years since attempting to be added to the favored four to no avail. Recently the Supreme Court, by refusing to hear the New Jersey case, effectively ruled that any changes must now be legislative not judicial. So, Atlantic City won’t be accepting bets on sports teams anytime soon.
It’s not just team sports like football and hockey, baseball and basketball that we Californians are unable to wager on at sport books. We can’t even play the ponies here in the Golden State except at the tracks.
California has tried several times to make sports betting legal. In the most recent attempt, Senator Roderick Wright introduced California Senate Bill 190 seeking to allow sports betting at the California venues that allow legal gambling: tribal casinos, card rooms, and horse racing tracks. The bill did not pass, dying in committee June 8, 2013. Even if it had passed, however, because of PASPA, action would have been required in Washington DC before it could be implemented.
Most of the Californians I know visit Las Vegas when they want to bet on athletic events. The Vegas sports books can legally accept wagers on professional sporting events and college competitions, but not on non-collegiate amateur sports. This restriction is based on Nevada gaming regulation 22.120-1(a). The prohibition stems primarily from a compromise worked out with Senator John McCain to restrict betting on amateur sports to collegiate ones.
Recently the Las Vegas sports books have questioned just what constitutes amateur sports. They question if the Olympics should even be considered amateur sports when teams are made up of professional athletes like LeBron James. Why should it be legal to bet on professional basketball and hockey players when playing for their home teams, but not be legal to bet on these same individuals when competing in the Olympics for their country? Are the Olympic athletes even amateurs when they are paid such large sums of money for product endorsement? Or when they earn comfortable livings playing these same games? Tough questions to answer.
Starting in the 1970’s, requirements that players be amateurs have gradually been phased out of the Olympic Charter. After the 1988 games, the IOC decided to make all professional athletes eligible to compete. As of 2012, the only sports in which no professionals compete are boxing and wrestling, and some of those fighters receive cash prizes from their national committees.
Vegas sport books have teamed up to lobby the Nevada Gaming Commission to allow betting on Olympic events in that state, hopefully in time for next year’s Summer Games in Rio. If the Commission gives its approval later this month, news sources report the IOC will monitor the change closely to safeguard the integrity of the competition. Proponents point out that Olympic betting is already common throughout the rest of the world, and that there have been no problems resulting from wagering on these sports.
We’ll keep you posted when we learn more.
UPDATED 3-13-2015
It’s unanimous! As of February 26th, Amateur sports regulations no longer ban betting on Olympic events at your favorite Nevada sportsbook. For more information and current betting odds, check out my updated blog entry HERE.
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