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The year 2018 was momentous and historic for sports betting. The activity enjoyed its most explosive proliferation in modern history. These five sports betting stories (in reverse order of importance) helped mark the tremendous change that the industry underwent in the past 12 months.
No. 5: The strange, sad saga of integrity fees
The decision to allow sports betting in the United States did not enchant the major sports leagues. The commissioners of the MLB, NBA, NFL, and NHL began separate campaigns about the proverbial can of worms now opened across the land.
To preserve the integrity of the game, or so they said, the leagues called for a percentage of all wagers to be paid to the leagues themselves. Presumably, the so-called “integrity fee” would allow the leagues to increase their enforcement and monitoring capabilities.
The leagues also demanded that sportsbooks use official data sources to generate their point spreads, moneylines and other statistical measures. Naturally, the leagues would designate the data source to be considered official.
The organizations also insisted that they have the right of refusal on betting types allowed for their sports. In other words, the leagues themselves would decide if wagering would occur on their games, and how wagering would proceed.
Mostly, all three of these lines of thought have met their end through discussions with various state-level officials and opinion pieces. However, league lobbyists and representatives continue to look for inroads that PASPA violated the anti-commandeering doctrine of the 10th Amendment.
Thus, states were empowered to pass sports betting laws as they saw fit. Many, like New Jersey, already had sports betting laws on the books and were merely waiting for the federal prohibition to drop.
The rest was history. Laws and sportsbooks began to pop up all over the country.
With one swing of the gavel, an entire industry sprang to life. So far, the results are pretty promising. That’s is especially true in New Jersey, where sportsbooks in that state accepted more than $330 million in November alone.
So, it has been one for the record books in sports betting this year. There’s no reason to suspect that 2019 will be any different.
