Posted on 12/31/2017 6:33:56 AM PST by Kaslin
Americans have long since broken free of their Puritan past, but the Puritan impulse is not quite dead. Among the places it shows signs of life is the 1992 federal law that prohibits states from -- you are not going to believe this -- allowing betting on sports.
If a Martian arrived today, of course, she would deduce that in this country, betting on sports is not forbidden but mandatory. In practice, it's as American as Dunkin' Donuts. March Madness costs businesses an estimated $4 billion a year in lost productivity, and it's not because employees waste time singing their fight songs.
Gambling has been around longer than the country itself. British colonists who bet on horse races, cards and cockfights arrived to find Native Americans busy with games of chance. The American Revolution was financed in part by a lottery, for heaven's sake.
But the urge to suppress this vice is just as old. That's how we got the federal law -- which is under review by the Supreme Court in a case that arose after New Jersey defied the ban by passing legislation to permit wagering on athletic contests. The federal law may survive the justices' scrutiny -- though veteran court watchers are betting against it -- but it isn't likely to survive changing mores for much longer.
Who do the feds think they're kidding anyway? Americans spend an estimated $150 billion a year on illegal sports wagers, which is more than they spend on fast food. The business is fully legal only in Nevada, but the aboveground market makes up just 5 percent of the total.
Sen. Bill Bradley, a former NBA star, was the moving force behind the law. "Betting on sports was betting on human beings," he explained later to NPR, "and I thought that that was wrong -- that it turns players into roulette chips."
I'll leave it to any irritable 300-pound lineman to explain to Bradley why he is not and would never be anyone's roulette chip. But whatever purpose the senator had in mind is beside the point, for the simple reason that his legislation doesn't deter betting on sports. All it does is push it into the shadows, where shysters and crooks thrive.
Die-hard opponents see all gambling as a menace because some people will blow the mortgage money, lose their jobs, wreck their families and plunge into poverty. But the vast majority of players are perfectly capable of enjoying it in moderation.
Besides, trying to prevent compulsive gambling by forbidding sports bets is like trying to prevent drowning by outlawing bathtubs. Anyone with an insatiable urge to wager already has a multitude of legal options, including casinos, racetracks and state lotteries. If those aren't sufficient, hardcore players can always find a bookie, a poker game or an online site.
Even prohibitionists sometimes join the party. Kathy Gilroy, an Illinois anti-gambling activist, recently made news. No, she didn't take an ax to a video poker machine; she won a $25,000 sweepstakes at a suburban gambling parlor.
I myself am part of an organization that could be accused of encouraging corrosive disrespect for the law. The Chicago Tribune, like other newspapers, makes a daily practice of printing the betting lines on NFL, NBA, NHL and NCAA matchups. That's because otherwise law-abiding readers want them.
The professional sports leagues long opposed legalization of wagering on their games. But they have profited hugely from fantasy leagues that divert the dollars into a cannibalized version. If Congress could actually stamp out sports betting, Cowboys owner Jerry Jones would be tempted to jump off the roof of AT&T Stadium.
Three years ago, NBA Commissioner Adam Silver endorsed lifting the ban and imposing regulation and technological safeguards. That way, he wrote, bettors would not have to "resort to illicit bookmaking operations and shady offshore websites."
Owners and fans have always worried that legal gambling would invite point-shaving and game-throwing. But as University of Chicago economist Allen Sanderson points out, "Las Vegas betting lines and abnormally large wagers on particular outcomes serve to provide decent clues as to which contests might be fixed."
The leagues already pay attention to these indicators to sniff out corrupt players and officials. "Policing such influences is easier in the light of day," Sanderson told me.
If Americans want to bet on sports, the wise course for the government is to let them. Prohibitionists think gamblers squander precious time and money on a foolish fantasy they will never achieve. Well, look who's talking.
No, but thank you for playing
Small wagers done informally amongst friends, family’s, and neighbors do little harm and can strengthen relationships, were there upper limits, say $20, the damage would be limited, but that is not what he is espousing.
I like horse racing and fantasy sports. Unfortunately I live in Texas where I am banned from wagering from the convenience of my own home. This needs to change.
>>But the vast majority of players are perfectly capable of enjoying it in moderation.
When the “vast majority are capable of enjoying it in moderation” standard is in effect, we can legalize all kinds of things.
“If a Martian arrived today, of course, she would deduce”
Enough with the Sheila Jackson Lee stuff !
Good job !
I’m reminded of Prostitution whenever I think about gambling. Yes, on the surface it’s just two people making a deal for things that they want - but it’s never surface-deep.
Professional sports wants another way to make money on their slaves. They trade them to each other for sums of cash, they dictate their lives and encourage animalistic behavior. They need a new way to make money from the bigger bucks.
Keep the bets at the barbershop and bar...
It’s a neighborhood enterprise.
Legalize..in the Land of the ‘Free’?
Sure 1/2 this thread will be NAYs by nanny-State’rs.
If it’s *SUCH* a detriment, why do we allow GOVT to that which We cannot (outside of immigration, war...the usual)?
BASED ON THE HEAD SHAPE, the Martians are here.
I’d bet this goes nowhere.
As it stands now, the Rockets’ new owner (and someone on the inside who REALLY wanted to see Univ of Houston in a more lucrative conference) owns casinos and wants to bring limited casinos to Texas (under his priviledged rules).
The funny thing is, I understood it completely.
Yes we can. It's called Liberty.
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Give it five years, and I’ll bet it becomes almost commonplace for athletes to be fixing games. It will start with the NFL because that’s the sport where the athletes have the biggest financial incentive: short careers, limited salaries, and a huge gambling culture already in place.
Losing money, especially for those that can’t afford it, is very serious for the safety and security of a person.
I have done almost every aspect of sport, administering tournaments and leagues, preparing fields and floors, competing, stating, officiating, writing articles for them, and spectator. No where in the almost 60 years of involvement, can I find a category for betting that is part of the game. The closest to it would be golf in old Scotland where they determined feuds or property by the game. But that wasn’t recreation. And it was used to keep people from killing each other. Has nothing to do with today’s sports. Betting is just a way to impress people with power. If not a single bet is waged, can the horses still run? Can the game be played?
And how long before the betting starts to turn people against each other and it stops being recreation in itself? And who’s responsible for the chronic gambler. The people who serve alcohol are responsible for giving it. Will the gambling commission establish rules to see the sick gambler won’t be able to place it and who gets punished if it does?
The original betting on horses in this country was between the owners and generally meant losing your horse if he lost the race. They didn’t have trifectas, Quinella, or even win place or show even if there were more than two horses in the race. Loser leaves town, broke. So the only people who can afford to use this is those that have plenty of money and are bored, or those that can’t afford it.
A lot of people never leave Vegas each year trying to get even or they have enough to get a bus ticket and go home to start their lives all over again. This over a game that might be played by people trying to keep the spread and not win the race?
If you want to let people do this, and a lot of suicide happens from this, when it doesn’t make any difference, or shouldn’t, to the game itself, that’s on you. But because of the overall graft sports is already into, I think it would be a huge mistake. And if it was good clean fun, why are the players suspended for doing so in each sport. Some like Pete Rose, who even lied about it for years, possibly removed for the rest of his life. You can also study Paul Hornung or Alex Karras, or the 3 basketball UTP college players suspended or Art Schlichter in college. Isn’t worth it and can be a destruction of recreational sports. To the pros, it’s money. To those outside in the sports bar, it’s recreation.....until they get too far behind. Then it can get just get damn serious, real quickly.
rwood
Yes, because we need more addicts and broken homes.
And I still love the racetrack, particularly in beautiful settings. I like to bet small amounts of money on the horses. It's like living chess to me.
But I don't think I'm for legalized gambling. The government would get involved and ruin everything.
ML/NJ
“If it’s *SUCH* a detriment, why do we allow GOVT to that which We cannot (outside of immigration, war...the usual)?”
Because adding one more stupidity doesn’t improve things. Fight for changing the stupid things we already do, not add to them.
You want gambling, drug use, prostitution legalized? Fine, but first get rid of any public, tax payer support for all the bad consequences that result from those activities. Let the the abuser as well as the “victims” bear all the consequences.
“If a Martian arrived today...”
Are they talking about the Martian in the picture?
If you’re looking to fix games in the US, the athletes are the last choice.
Watch the officials.
Paid less and more anonymous.
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