{"id":15792,"date":"2019-03-21T01:46:09","date_gmt":"2019-03-21T01:46:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/?p=15792"},"modified":"2019-03-22T16:20:25","modified_gmt":"2019-03-22T16:20:25","slug":"march-madness-with-gambling-legal-in-eight-states-who-really-wins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/march-madness-with-gambling-legal-in-eight-states-who-really-wins\/","title":{"rendered":"March Madness: With gambling legal in eight states, who really wins?"},"content":{"rendered":"

John Affleck<\/a>, Pennsylvania State University<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

March means springtime, but also breathless headlines of Cinderellas, busted brackets and buzzer beaters.<\/p>\n

This year, it\u2019ll also include talk of \u201csharps,\u201d \u201chandles\u201d and \u201cpoint spreads,\u201d as millions more Americans are able to openly wager for the first time on March Madness \u2013 the NCAA men\u2019s basketball tournament. That\u2019s thanks to the U.S. Supreme Court ruling<\/a> that allowed states to legalize sports betting.<\/p>\n

As a sports journalism professor<\/a>, I\u2019ve been following the evolution of sports gambling for several years \u2013 back to a time when it was portrayed as a revolutionary and scary moment for fans and teams alike.<\/p>\n

With millions more Americans gambling legally, it\u2019s no longer scary, but that doesn\u2019t mean some officials and observers aren\u2019t concerned about perils in its rapid growth.<\/p>\n

The legal bandwagon<\/h2>\n

Most tournament gambling is still illegal, but that\u2019s changing quickly.<\/p>\n

According to a survey conducted by Morning Consult for the American Gaming Association, 47 million adults in the United State will wager US$8.5 billion<\/a> on March Madness this year, including 4.1 million who will do so for the first time at a casino sportsbook or online using a legal app. The rest of the bets, including the tens of millions made in office pools around the country, will be illegal.<\/p>\n

Yes, you heard that right. Your office pool is most likely illegal<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Last year, the American Gaming Association estimated that $10 billion was at stake<\/a>, but the calculation method has since changed. We do know that 97 percent of the action was illegal, including office pools. Nevada accounted for the legal betting.<\/p>\n

Now, as is the case in situations with state-by-state legislation, the rules vary<\/a> from place to place.<\/p>\n

Early adopter New Jersey has both casinos and online apps ready to take bets. Pennsylvania, meanwhile, now has several brick-and-mortar sportsbooks, but legal online betting is still a few months away. With just six betting locations open last month, Pennsylvania\u2019s combined handle \u2013 the total of all sports wagering \u2013 was about $31.5 million<\/a>, generating tax revenue of about $700,000. Most of that went to the state.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s early, but \u201cwe know it\u2019ll be busy and there\u2019ll be a bump\u201d in action this month because of March Madness, Doug Harbach, a spokesman for the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board told me in an interview. Two new locations for sports betting just opened, a sign of how quickly gambling is spreading.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, not much can stop bettors from putting money down on illegal online gambling sites outside the United States, and the American Gaming Association estimates<\/a> 5.2 million Americans will do exactly that over the next few weeks. It\u2019s the way many gamblers have put money down in previous years. Though illegal, enforcement has been light.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Most March Madness gamblers predict Duke will win the 2019 tournament.<\/span>
\nAP Photo\/David J. Phillip<\/a><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Addiction and integrity<\/h2>\n

Anti-gambling advocates say what hasn\u2019t changed is the long-term impact on addiction, which is likely to rise in years to come as legal sports betting becomes more widespread.<\/p>\n

Asked whether states adopting legalized sports wagering are doing enough to also combat gambling addiction, Keith Whyte, executive director of the
\nNational Council on Problem Gambling<\/a>, said: \u201cNot really.\u201d He also noted that, while gambling addiction doesn\u2019t seem to have spiked in the past year, the negative effects of sports gambling will show up down the road.<\/p>\n

Some states, like New Jersey, adopted the council\u2019s recommendations<\/a> for minimizing harm from legal gambling, such as dedicated funds to prevent and treat addition and establishing a minimum age, while most have only enacted a few safeguards.<\/p>\n

For its part, the NCAA has come out against<\/a> legalized sports gambling.<\/p>\n

\u201cSports wagering is going to have a dramatic impact on everything we do in college sports,\u201d NCAA President Mark Emmert said at the group\u2019s national convention in January<\/a>. \u201cIt\u2019s going to threaten the integrity of college sports in many ways unless we are willing to act boldly and strongly.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gamblers win<\/h2>\n

But there\u2019s little the NCAA can do about it. More legal sports betting is on its way \u2013 though the office pool will presumably still be a no-no.<\/p>\n

Joni Comstock, senior vice president of championships at the NCAA, estimates<\/a> that 30 states could have legal gambling within a couple of years.<\/p>\n

As for who\u2019s the favorite of gamblers and the more than 40 million Americans who were expected to fill out brackets, 29 percent apparently picked Duke to win it all. Nobody else was even close.\"The<\/p>\n

John Affleck<\/a>, Knight Chair in Sports Journalism and Society, Pennsylvania State University<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

This article is republished from The Conversation<\/a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

John Affleck, Pennsylvania State University March means springtime, but also breathless headlines of Cinderellas, busted brackets and buzzer beaters. This year, it\u2019ll also include talk of \u201csharps,\u201d \u201chandles\u201d and \u201cpoint spreads,\u201d as millions more Americans are able to openly wager for the first time on March Madness \u2013 the NCAA men\u2019s basketball tournament. That\u2019s thanks […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":15787,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[277],"tags":[3081,666,6057,6059,664,1115,4184,2197,203,670,6058],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15792"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15792"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15792\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15794,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15792\/revisions\/15794"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15787"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15792"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15792"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15792"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}