Experts believe that legalized sports betting is coming to the United States by 2020, if not sooner. Momentum is building to expand legal sports betting outside of Nevada. Led by NBA commissioner Adam Silver, some professional sports leagues (which have been long-standing staunch opponents of sports betting legalization) are starting to change their tune.
New Jersey’s efforts to bring Las Vegas-style sports betting to Atlantic City casinos and the state’s racetracks have, at a minimum, raised questions about the effectiveness of the 23-year-old federal ban on sports betting. Four more states — Indiana, Minnesota, New York and South Carolina — have introduced sports betting legislation in recent months, and two federal bills have been presented in Congress.
The question is beginning to appear as if it’s when, not if, sports betting will be legalized in the U.S., but is the country mature enough as a gambling society to handle it?
When NBA commissioner Adam Silver declared his support for legalized sports betting in November, he changed the game for the other leagues. But will it be enough to move the line? David Purdum explores in ESPN The Magazine’s Gambling Issue. Dr. Howard Shaffer, an associate professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and a leading authority on the impact of gambling expansion, isn’t sure.
“The more mature gambling environment, more mature gambling community, the less it’s affected by expansion or changing of the characteristics of the gambling system,” said Shaffer, who is also the director of the Division on Addictions at the Cambridge Health Alliance. “In the U.K., as an example, they’re very mature as a gambling society. There’s gambling everywhere. Although people expected an uptick there, when they expanded gambling, it didn’t really happen. I think the question is: ‘Is the sports gambling in America mature enough to tolerate expansion?’
“Sports betting in the United States is ubiquitous,” Shaffer continued. “We have office pools, friendly wagers, it’s not unusual when Super Bowl time rolls around for mayors of the competing cities to have a public bet. That’s all sports betting. Now, is the community mature enough to tolerate legalized sports betting? Because when sports becomes legal, there will be some people who might not have bet on sports who will now jump in. Are those sports betting virgins, so to speak, going to be affected? I think the answer is ‘yes.’ But the real question is: ‘How many are there and is there enough to influence the system?’ ”
Seen on ESPN.com – view here http://espn.go.com/chalk/story/_/id/12555614/betting-sports-betting-legalization-cause-more-problem-gamblers