Sport Betting economy is getting bigger year by year , than the game .
When fans, both casual and committed, place their bets on Super Bowl LIX, many will be focused on proposition bets, such as the distance of Kansas City quarterback Patrick Mahomes’ first touchdown pass (the over/under is 9.5 yards even money at the Rampart Casino in Las Vegas, as of publication), or dozens of similar wagers.
In 2024, legal bettors wagered a record $142.5 billion, with operators holding $13.2 billion, or 9.3% in revenue. States and local governments collected $2.9 billion in taxes.
By comparison, in 2017, the last year of Nevada’s reign as America’s only legal sports betting option, legal bettors laid down $248.8 million, with the state’s sportsbooks holding 5% of the action.
Americans are expected to legally bet $1.39 billion alone on Sunday’s game, reports ESPN.
Nevada, just years ago the mecca of legal sports gambling, is no longer a major player. Its sports betting action, in the national scheme, is insignificant.
“Proliferation is definitely diluting the Vegas brand,” says Jim Dowling, a former Internal Revenue Service agent who is now an anti-money laundering consultant.
More than half of the states with legal betting ended 2024 with a double-digit percentage hold, according to Legal Sports Report, which noted Nevada’s 6.4% take is “still the leanest of them all” thanks to a “relatively sharp base of Las Vegas bettors and a comparatively limited menu of props and parlays…”
Last year, Nevada’s sports betting win of $482 million was flat from the previous year. The $7.9 billion handle, or amount bet, was down 4.5% from the previous year. But mobile sports betting in Nevada was up almost 19% year-to-year with revenue of $285.8 million.
New York’s sports betting economy
New York’s sports betting economy is twice as large as any market in the country and growing, with a handle of $22.5 billion in 2024, up 18% from 2023, according to Legal Sports Report.
Sports books in New York, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island pay 51% in taxes, compared with Nevada and Idaho, which pay 6.75%, the lowest rate in the nation.
“Once sports betting was legalized, it was a rush to the death,” says Dowling. “Everyone ran to get into sports and it’s gone crazy. The rules have been bent. There are no athletes, just paid performers.” The only limitation to the online gambling market, he says, may be the threat posed by bad actors trying to launder illicit money, ‘lay off’ action for illegal betting rings, affect odds, and coerce or threaten athletes.
It’s not whether you win or lose, it’s how you play the game
Americans bet nearly $64 billion with illegal online sportsbooks and bookies a year, says the American Gaming Association. A majority of gamblers want to place legal bets, according to the AGA, but are “deceived by unlicensed, offshore websites that pose as legal operators.”
State gambling regulators ask feds for help combating illegal offshore betting
Matthew Wein, a former Policy Advisor to the Department of Homeland Security, says some may wonder about sports league’s reliance on revenue from partnerships with online sportsbooks, and “are concerned they won’t be able to push back against negative things the platforms might do to affect the integrity of the sport.”
Last year, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell estimated the league had suspended 13 players and 25 league employees for gambling. League rules require that players be suspended one year for betting on league games and two years for betting on their own games.
“Betting integrity monitors within a league can tell if an athlete is betting on a sport, especially from a facility owned by a team,” says Wein, “But if an athlete gambles through an illegal bookie and loses a large sum– even if the bet would otherwise be allowed by the league’s gambling policy– it opens them up to outside influence. And this would take place (potentially) beyond the view of integrity monitors. This is especially concerning if they are using an illegal bookie to wash bets on their own team or their own sport.”
Mathew Bowyer, one of the illegal bookmakers who admitted last year to laundering ill-gotten gains in Las Vegas casinos, booked at least 19,000 bets from September 2021 through January 2024 for Ippei Mizuhara, the interpreter who stole some $17 million from Major League Baseball star Shohei Ohtani. Ohtani, authorities say, was oblivious to Mizuhara’s betting.
Bowyer, however, says athletes were among those who placed bets on his Costa Rica-based websites.
“If 50 percent are gambling, I would think 10 percent of those are compulsive gamblers,” Bowyer told the New York Post this week, adding he believes less than 3% of athletes wager on their own sport.
Sibella looks forward to working in gaming after guilty plea. Can he get a license?
Months later, Resorts World terminated Sibella, following news of a federal investigation and issuance of a federal subpoena to the hotel. He has since pleaded guilty in federal court to one count of failing to report a $120,000 cash payment to MGM in 2018 from Wayne Nix, a former minor league baseball player who admitted to operating an illegal sports betting ring.
State gaming regulators eventually filed a complaint against Sibella, who agreed to relinquish his gaming license. However, regulators have taken no action against MGM.
Hendrick, at a critical time for gaming regulators, is leaving his post on the GCB at the end of the Nevada legislative session in June, after serving two years of a four-year term. His replacement, to be appointed by Gov. Joe Lombardo, will be the sixth person in seven years to chair the GCB.
The GCB “seems to be focused on problem gambling, underage gambling, advertising, whether the consumer is being cheated, although they’re mandated to ensure that casinos comply with state and federal regulations,” Dowling, the anti-money laundering consultant, said during an interview. “That’s a wide breadth of responsibility. I don’t think they had people with the skill set to identify money laundering and they weren’t looking at it. It’s hard to see unless you get in and do some analytics or have someone on the inside telling you.”
The Evolution of sport betting
The evolution of sports betting may be best illustrated by the NFL’s 2003 response to Las Vegas tourism officials’ attempt to buy an ad on the Super Bowl. “The NFL has a long-standing policy that prohibits the acceptance of any message that makes reference to or mention of sports betting,” NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy told the Washington Post at the time.
NFL Commissioner Goodell said the NFL’s members “still strongly oppose legalized sports gambling” even after team owners approved the Raiders’ move to Las Vegas.
Today, sports betting is legal in 39 states and the District of Columbia, and plagued by growing pains, on and off the field. Leagues that avoided alliances with casinos now have lucrative partnerships with multiple online sportsbooks.
Last year, Las Vegas hosted the Super Bowl and Southern Nevada is now home to NFL, NHL, and WNBA teams, with Major League Baseball coming to a partially publicly-financed stadium soon.
“The leagues saw the Supreme Court ruling as a huge money making opportunity for them in terms of licensing and how they monetize that,” says Prof. Harry Crane Jr., a sports betting expert. “It’s also made the value of the teams in these leagues go up significantly.”
Even Mickey Mouse is in on the action: ESPN Bet is owned in large part by the Walt Disney Company.
Athletes are under investigation for betting on their own sports, under attack for failing to meet the demands of individual gambler’s proposition bets, and facing the prospect of federal regulation.
‘A currency by any other name’
Casinos in Nevada prohibit the use of cryptocurrency to buy chips on the casino floor, although kiosks allow gamblers to convert digital wallet currency to cash, a popular means of money laundering.
Crypto is also used to purchase chips, not from the casino, but from individuals, especially in casino poker rooms, which are not regulated in Nevada to the extent that table games are monitored. “People swap both ways all the time,” says an illegal bookie the Current agreed not to name in order to gather information. “Chips, cash, crypto, etc., back and forth. Supply and demand based on who needs what.”
Sports books disallow bets with crypto because the value could fluctuate between the time the bet is made and when the book has to pay out.
“In many instances because everything that happens on the block chain is recorded there is more of a record than simply using cash or chips,” says Wein. “So in some instances it actually may be easier to track the use of cryptocurrency.”
The bookie, however, says digital currencies are “essentially the same as cash,” in that nothing “is tied to you and only you.”
