Legalizing sports wagering could have big payoff ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Wanna bet?

Well, you can’t. Not on sports. Not legally, anyhow. Sure, a few dollars exchanging hands between friends in a private pool is on the up and up, but unless you want to fly to Vegas, you can’t bet the spread on Thursday’s Villanova-Duke game — or do pretty much any other kind of organized sports betting.

Montana is one of just four states in which any kind of sports betting is legal. But here you can only play fantasy NASCAR and football games through the state lottery, according to Montana Lottery communication director Jo Berg. Delaware, Oregon and Nevada are the other three exempted from federal prohibitions, though Delaware and Oregon currently don’t sanction betting.

It’s high time that the other 46 states are allowed to get into the game, too. A federal law passed in 1992 respects sports betting in the four states that met the deadline to sign up for it. New Jersey State Sen. Raymond Lesniak filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court on Monday that seeks to overturn that Professional and Amateur Sports Act, saying it’s unconstitutional to allow sports wagering in four states but not the rest. You can say nothing good comes from New Jersey, but this is a smart idea.

Legalizing sports wagering would create thousands of jobs across the board in all states. It would also open for the rest of the country the Pandora’s box of revenue Nevada has enjoyed since legalizing gambling in 1931. The Associated Press reported Monday that estimates of illegal sports betting range as high as $380 billion a year nationwide and could be an $11 billion-a-year industry for New Jersey. Nobody’s winning that much in March Madness office pools, that’s for sure. “Rather than supporting thousands of jobs, economic activity and tourism, the federal ban supports offshore operators and organized crime,” Lesniak said. Indeed, it is safer to allow wagering enthusiasts to call up local bookies and place bets than to hang out in dark alleys and trust sketchy offshore Web sites with credit card information.

The arguments against legalizing gambling are numerous and valid. It’s true that thousands of people in this country suffer from gambling addiction. However, it is not the government’s job to keep people from their vices. Further, sports betting, like tobacco and alcohol, would be heavily regulated and monitored by newly- and happily-employed bureaucrats. The sports leagues, both professional and collegiate, are vehemently opposed to betting. Their concern is for the integrity of their sports.

Unfortunately, the integrity of sports flew out the window when Mark McGwire’s 62nd home run cleared the wall in 1998, when Pete Rose was banned for betting on baseball, when Michigan basketball players took money from a booster and when an ugly brawl broke out between the Detroit Pistons and the Indiana Pacers in 2004. The list is longer than the number of people who bet on Big Brown in last year’s Belmont Stakes.

So-called point shaving — like was done by Boston College basketball players in the 1970s and by Toledo football players this decade — will remain a federal offense. Legalizing betting will not legalize cheating. And while we should hope for a resurrection in the integrity of sports, closing it from betting isn’t the way to do it. Allowing betting will only create more transparency.

And let’s face it: we are long past the days when sports were pastimes and pleasant distractions. Professional athletes, universities and major corporations make tons of money off of us through merchandise, ticket sales and overpriced Cracker Jacks. It’s time we were allowed the chance to make something off of them.
 

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