Last week, Georgia’s state legislature declined once more to take up the legalization of sports betting as a ballot referendum in 2025. Georgians will now have to wait until 2026 for the measure to be reconsidered, despite polling from the University of Georgia showing that 63% of voters would have backed legalization. Across the country, 39 states have legalized the practice and nine holdouts remain, two of which include the population behemoths of Texas and California, where either referendum or the legislative cold shoulder has shut out legal sports betting. 

And yet, sports betting is still practiced in staggering numbers in every state. A new report from NEXT/Blask shows that Bovada, a betting site based in Costa Rica, dwarfs the brand strength and earnings of regulated U.S.-based brands such as FanDuel and DraftKings.  

The rise in offshore sports betting, far from any U.S. jurisdiction, should be concerning for both advocates and opponents of this particular type of gambling. Blask, an AI-powered analytics firm, shows remarkable market share for Bovada at $13 billion in 2024, larger than FanDuel and DraftKings combined. At the state level, the report shows Florida’s only regulated sportsbook, Hard Rock Bet, controls just 20% of the market, leaving the rest to offshore betting sites. 

With college basketball’s March Madness now in full swing, this is a fact state legislatures should take more seriously. It is understandable why skeptics of online sports betting are disinclined to condone the practice. Their concern is that legalization represents a societal stamp of approval on gambling, which leads people to place bets who otherwise wouldn’t have considered it. The truth is that the rates of increased problem gambling are almost insignificant in comparison to how much access has been expanded, a point made by leading researcher Howard Shaffer. 

The vast majority of overseas sportsbooks operate in the Caribbean and Latin America, where U.S. state regulations are a punchline. These sites will take whatever method of payment a willing gambler has, including cryptocurrency, money wires, or credit cards. For casual and problem gamblers alike, nothing is worse than betting on money you don’t have. 

Just recently, personal finance guru Dave Ramsey laid into sports betting on his popular radio show after hearing about a listener’s husband who ran up $300,000 in gambling debt using credit cards. This kind of behavior can destroy lives, but advocates against sports betting have yet to provide an answer for how prohibition helps to reduce this kind of harm.

It’s not entirely clear how many illegal bets are being placed in either California or Texas on unregulated sportsbooks, but we do know that these states boast the largest populations in the U.S. Former Texas Governor Rick Perry did a video for the Sports Betting Alliance drawing attention to the estimated $8.7 billion in annual illegal bets placed in his state.

If that number is anywhere near accurate, it would explain why Bovada has such a dramatic lead over U.S. sportsbooks with basic consumer protections such as debit-only transactions and mechanisms for problem gamblers to limit their use or ban themselves altogether. 

We also know from publicly available search data that inquiries for illegal sportsbooks such as Bovada drop by as much as 50% in the states with legal sports betting that offer taxed and regulated options.

In a painful personal essay for The Free Press, compulsive gambler Allan Loeb shared his life story as a gambling addict and the rapid growth of the betting industry. 

He points out that the National Council on Problem Gambling has found only 1% of American adults suffer from gambling addiction, plus a modest 2.5% who wrestle with more mild habits. Loeb reminds us that nothing is more dangerous than being in debt to illegal operators who threaten not just your financial health but your physical safety. 

This speaks to the fact that there is literally no way to restrict people in a free country with access to the Internet from engaging in gambling. This is the reality on the ground and is made even more complicated by a country with 50 states and a patchwork of varying regulations once you cross any state line. 

State legislators get caught up in debates over tax revenue and funding mechanisms for education and infrastructure, but at the end of the day, legalization shouldn’t be pitched as a financial solution for a state’s revenue problems. It is the only way to provide a layer of consumer protection to your citizens who can access unregulated sites with a VPN and a few clicks. 

Something has to change, whether that be California and Texas helping to starve the illegal market by legalizing their own sportsbooks, or a federal regulatory approach to get all U.S. states on the same page. 

What can’t continue is a circling of the wagons on sports betting that pretends to keep gambling at bay when no such thing is happening. 

Originally published here

For the second year in a row, the Mississippi House has advanced legislation to legalize mobile sports betting in the state. House Bill 1302, the Mississippi Mobile Sports Wagering Act, which includes a 12% tax on online sports wagers, addresses several concerns that doomed similar legislation in 2024 and provides for a $6 million fund to support brick-and-mortar casinos in the state, as well as critical infrastructure. Consumers want to place sports bets, the question for Mississippi is where they’ll allow residents to do it and how much illicit online betting they’re willing to accept before establishing a legal avenue. 

The argument against mobile sports betting has always been split between shielding casino revenues and protecting consumers from the potential harms of gambling addiction. Chiefly, lawmakers worry that allowing people to wager from home will cut into the bottom line of the state’s brick-and-mortar casinos, which themselves are a bet by the state on tax revenue gains. This led to the inclusion of a provision in HB 1302 setting up a Retail Sports Wagering Protection Fund to cover shortfalls for casinos that experience dips in their annual revenue. 

Mississippi already allows in-person sports betting as of 2018,  meaning that the infrastructure exists for sportsbooks to partner with local casinos and offer mobile betting options under a new legal framework.

The demand is undeniable. A consumer report from Paysafe showed that amongst 1,700 sports betting consumers and those interested in betting, 65 percent were interested in mobile options versus 46 percent for in-person gambling. Since the start of the NFL season, Mississippi recorded 8.7 million attempts by residents to access legal mobile sportsbooks elsewhere. 

This leads consumers into shady online interactions with offshore betting operations where data is not kept safe and credit cards are fair game for placing bets. This can be hugely damaging for consumers. The New York Times reported on how several New York gambling firms were illegally accepting lower-division football and basketball bets, and at least two states ignored credit card usage in the system. 

Bad actors must be weeded out of these markets and legal frameworks are the first step. 

The alternative is prohibition and turning a blind eye to what your people are doing in the absence of a regulated market. An effective regulatory regime accounts for the kind of consumer behavior lawmakers can reasonably anticipate and then keeps those people as safe as possible without removing adults’ right to make adult choices. 

Like in Iowa & Tennessee, HB 1302 bars the use of credit cards in online bets, and requires age verification for players, a policy piloted by Pennsylvania & Michigan. The bill allows for up to two online betting services to partner with a local casino in order to operate. The $6 million protection fund exists to serve the smaller Mississippi casinos that might not acquire online betting partners. 

Much has been done to account for consumer protection and the investments made in brick-and-mortar casinos in the state.  

Rep. Casey Eure, who spearheaded the legislation, made it clear that HB 1302 was designed to respect the interests of brick-and-mortar casinos while bringing Mississippi into the modern era of sports betting. An overwhelming bipartisan approval of 88-10 in the House is nothing to balk at, and it keeps Mississippi proactive in managing a valuable tax revenue stream. 

The region’s casinos are increasingly lucrative and a source of employment for nearly 50,000 Mississippians, but there’s a looming generational shadow that points toward young people being less likely to frequent physical casinos. It’s not that Millennials and Gen Z don’t bet, they do, they’re simply not on track to replace the older demographic typically found in a Biloxi casino at 10 PM on a Friday night. 

Even conservative estimates suggest that Mississippi is losing between $40 million and $80 million annually in potential tax revenue by keeping mobile sports betting illegal. That’s revenue that could be improving roads, funding education, and strengthening local economies, particularly those with smaller casinos delivering less than anticipated tax revenue.

The future of sports betting and gaming is mobile, and real improvements have been made to the sports betting proposals on the table since 2024. The best outcome for Mississippi consumers is a regulated market that takes consumer protection seriously, involves buy-in from physical casinos and ultimately respects the right of every adult to make financial and entertainment choices for themselves.

Originally published here

Georgia is one of the largest markets without legalized sports betting, and the state could rival others that have already legalized such wagering.

While the state does not have sports wagering, it does have a lottery. Last week, the Georgia Lottery Corp. reported its most profitable first quarter since its start in 1993.

The analysis found that Georgia, one of 15 states without legalized sports betting, could generate $600 million of revenue annually. The Empire State of the South could rival states like Michigan or Virginia if it legalized sports betting.

The Peach State’s “population rivals Ohio’s, and officials in Georgia have shown some recent interest in legalization, too,” PlayUSA said in a report. “The strength and positioning of the state lottery could complicate the proposed implementation, but we’ll choose to be optimistic for now.”

PlayUSA, a content and resource center for the legal gambling industry that focuses on the United States, predicted that at least two states will legalize sports betting next year. Georgia lawmakers have considered legalizing sports betting and casino gambling in the past.

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The Consumer Choice Center’s US Sports Betting Index recently conducted an audit of every state in terms of its sports betting affability. 

Below we reveal which states scored the highest, according to the latest report.

What Makes a Good Bookmaking State?

Before the groundbreaking litigation that resulted in the U.S. Supreme Court overturning the PASPA (Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act) of 1992, Nevada was the place you had to go if you wanted to make a legal sports bet in America.

But that all changed in 2018 and now you can wager legally in 30-plus states as well as the District of Columbia. Not all sports betting is created equal though, as some states allow you to register for an online account in the comfort of your living room while others mandate you must sign up at one of the state’s casinos.

Getting people off of their couches to travel to a destination they might not otherwise make just to register for an online sports betting account proved to be a step too far in Illinois and they wisely dispensed with the requirement shortly before March Madness this year.

The registrations swelled immediately in the Prairie State which should be a loud and clear signal to all other jurisdictions to do away with it if they want to maximize their revenue potential…and they all do.

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Hollywood Casino in Kansas City, Kan. is just a stone’s throw away from Platte County and a very short drive for those of us who live along the I-435 corridor. Hollywood Casino is about to become more popular with a lot of folks who live in Platte County. That’s a Between the Lines prediction for you.

And that prediction is based on the fact that sports betting has been legalized in Kansas. You can bet Hollywood Casino is gearing up to offer legalized sports betting about the time the football season opens this fall. Hollywood Casino plans to be ready to take your sports wagers when the NFL regular season opens around Sept. 11. The Kansas Speedway, coincidentally, will host the Hollywood Casino 400 NASCAR race that same weekend. And that’s another sports wagering opportunity.

Kansas officially legalized sports betting effective July 1. By now you probably know where I’m headed with this. Sports betting is not legal in Missouri. Look to your legislators at the statehouse for the reasons why. Our legislators can be an interesting group on certain topics, sometimes slow to come around to modern times on some issues. This is one of those issues.

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The only way to stop a bad guy from taking unregulated bets is with a good guy taking legal bets, more or less the message from Consumer Choice Center manager David Clement, who targets his attention on North American sports betting affairs, an active topic these days.

In a recent statement, Clement had this to say regarding Missouri’s stalled legal sports betting market:

The key to stamping out the illegal sports betting market is legalizing sports betting and having an open and competitive market where legal sports books compete for consumers. Not only does this help grow the legal market, it actively discourages consumers from placing bets in the illegal market which is ripe for fraud and abuse.

The Consumer Choice Center is a “consumer advocacy group supporting lifestyle freedom, innovation, privacy, science, and consumer choice,” and what manager Clement is suggesting is nothing new to Missouri lawmakers who are struggling to pick a betting bill and go with it.

It’s a battle between state House and Senate ideas of what a Missouri sports betting market should look like, something Consumer Choice Center manager Clement seems qualified to weigh in on.

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After another legislative session came and went without sports betting passed in Missouri, a global advocacy group is among those urging the state to go all-in next year.

David Clement, the North American affairs manager for Consumer Choice Center and co-author of a new study diving into sports betting policies from state to state as well as the revenue they pull in, encouraged the Show-Me State to enact its own version in the near future to cut down on illegal gaming and reap the financial benefits of a new market.

“The key to stamping out the illegal sports betting market is legalizing sports betting, and having an open and competitive market where legal sports books compete for consumers,” Clement said in a statement. “Not only does this help grow the legal market, it actively discourages consumers from placing bets in the illegal market which is ripe for fraud and abuse.”

He added, “Missouri should immediately legalize sports betting, and do so in a way that opens the market and encourages competition.”

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A new report published by the Consumer Choice Center evaluates all 50 states on how consumer friendly their sports betting markets are. Unfortunately, with sports betting still illegal in Utah, Utah ranks dead last in the index. Utah, and the 14 other states who have maintained their ban on sports betting are in large part why the illegal betting market in the US is still thriving. It is estimated that the illegal sports betting market generated $50-$200 billion in revenue in 2020.

The Consumer Choice Center’s North American Affairs Manager, and co-author of the report, David Clement explained stating, “The key to stamping out the illegal sports betting market is legalizing sports betting, and having an open and competitive market where legal sportsbooks compete for consumers. Not only does this help grow the legal market, it actively discourages consumers from placing bets in the illegal market which is ripe for fraud and abuse”

Read the full text here

Illegal gambling continues to thrive in the United States because of states like Georgia that ban betting on sports.

That’s according to a new report from the Consumer Choice Center, an advocacy group fighting for “lifestyle freedom, innovative technologies, and smart regulation.” The group looked at all 50 states to evaluate how consumer-friendly their sports betting markets are and, unsurprisingly, Georgia ranked last.

According to the report, Georgia and 14 other states have a ban on sports betting. Despite the bans, the illegal sports betting market generated an estimated $50 billion to $200 billion in revenue in 2020.

“The key to stamping out the illegal sports betting market is legalizing sports betting, and having an open and competitive market where legal sportsbooks compete for consumers,” David Clement, North American affairs manager for the Consumer Choice Center and co-author of the report, said in an announcement. “Not only does this help grow the legal market, it actively discourages consumers from placing bets in the illegal market which is ripe for fraud and abuse.

Read the full text here