Online gaming continues to be in a bit of turmoil in the wake of the legalization or pending legalization of sports betting in many jurisdictions around the world. It is no longer enough to offer the best online casino games. Players have so many entertainment options that they demand more. Casinos, gambling outlets, and governments are meeting the demand. One way is through sports betting.
Australia has announced that while it continues to allow sports betting, it is now banning advertising for sports betting to be shown during normal broadcasts of sports events. Sports betting is seen throughout the world as the next great wave of gambling activity and as an excellent way to raise much needed government funds but parents and legislators are wary of the effect sports betting advertising might have on their children.
Variety of Bets
Sports betting obviously allows bets on sporting events but the term sports betting encompasses more than betting on sports. It also includes betting on the entertainment industry: who will win the award for best actress this year? It entails betting on politics: will Donald Trump run for re-election; be impeached; resign or another option? You can place a bet on almost anything: will next winter be as cold and snowy as this one?
Yet, the primary area of bets in sports betting is, of course, sports. Sports are great because you never know who will win. Just this week a team that was not expected to advance far in the NCAA March Madness Tournament, the United States’ foremost college basketball tournament, the team from little Loyola University of Chicago, won again and is now one of the final four teams in the tournament.
If you had bet on the Ramblers to ramble this far in the tournament, you would have experienced a very nice payday.
Watching Games Live
One of the great aspects of sports betting is that the top sites afford bettors live streaming in real time of every sporting event for which they take bets. Fans can become bettors and bettors can become fans.
Taking Bets During Live Telecasts
In all the hoopla over sports betting, there’s one area that still brings about heated debate: should sports betting sites be allowed to take bets while games or events are going on live? The perceived problem is the same as what obtains in binary options. The “real time” report of the performance of a bettor’s binary option is often not really in real time.
Binary options through some unscrupulous sites are a real scam. Because of that, some legislators feel that sports betting sites might try something similar. In sports it really is impossible to do what sometimes happens in binary options. The outcome of a game or a moment in the game can easily be verified.
Australia Disallows Gambling Advertisements
The Australian government announced recently that it was banning advertising for sports betting during television broadcasts of sporting events. This is a much different situation than banning betting during sports events. As shown above, it is virtually impossible to cheat customers on a bet made during a sports event.
Parents don’t want their kids, who might be watching a sports event on the regular television channel, to see advertising for sports betting. This is not the same as someone who wants to bet and is watching a live stream of the match through his or her sports betting site.
Preventing Gambling Obsession
Sports betting is like any other gambling activity: it can be abused. While many jurisdictions are looking to sports betting as another way to raise tax revenues for government services, no government wants to create a society beset by problem gambling. All reputable online casinos try to keep their players from developing a gambling problem. Everyone recognizes that gambling is a fun pastime as long as it remains a pastime and not an obsession.
Will America Lead the Way?
People are looking to the United States for a sign of how governments will treat sports betting going forward. In 1992, the United States congress passed a law that was intended on protecting amateur and professional athletes and leagues from the pressures they might feel from sports bettors. The law disallowed sports betting in all the states except the four states that already had sports betting.
Three of those four states had minor variations of sports betting but Las Vegas in Nevada had full-fledged sports betting. In the ensuing 26 years there have been no scandals in American sports at any level relating to sports betting.
One state, New Jersey, sued to have the law from 1992 overturned and the US Supreme Court will probably render its decision in the case within the next few months. Most people expect the court to overturn the law on constitutional grounds. That would allow the states individually to allow or disallow sports betting in their jurisdiction. Unlike in most countries where everything is centrally run, in the United States the states have a great deal of authority and responsibility. So each state will decide if it wants to allow sports betting or not.
Those states that decide to allow sports betting will have to set up their own set of regulations for sports betting.
There is no doubt that the subject of betting during a match or advertising sports betting during normal broadcasts of sports events will come up in each state and there may be a variety of solutions to the problems.
Creative Regulation
As with any activity that can lead to abuse or obsession, governments must regulate sports betting. We allow governments to regulate everything from the flow of traffic to the nutritional value of food. So it makes perfect sense for governments to regulate sports betting. Australia’s solution to the challenge of advertising sports betting in a free society is one such step.
