{"id":70257,"date":"2018-08-19T17:58:25","date_gmt":"2018-08-20T00:58:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/?p=70257"},"modified":"2018-08-19T17:58:42","modified_gmt":"2018-08-20T00:58:42","slug":"legalized-sports-betting-mean-players","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/legalized-sports-betting-mean-players\/","title":{"rendered":"What Does Legalized Sports Betting Mean for the Players?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Let’s look at the effect of the SCOTUS decision on sports bettors in states where betting is legalized now or soon to be. To do this, I’ll need to address two separate categories, professional and casual bettors.<\/p>\n

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For those who want to bet on sports primarily for entertainment, the spread of legal books gives them a way to bet locally and legally. Those who have been reluctant to bet with agents for offshore books, or to post-up (seed an account with funds) to bet, now have an outlet. With the push for betting phone apps in some legal states, players won’t even have to travel to a physical book.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

While some might protest that this will create a new class of addicted gamblers, my opinion is that most people with those tendencies would have already found a sports book agent or some other form of gambling to feed their addition. Most problem sports bettors use agents because they\u2019re allowed to bet on credit. That won’t be an option in legal books.<\/p>\n

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Many who want to have action on games but didn’t have an outlet had turned to Daily Fantasy Sports (DFS). Legal books are a threat to DFS, and vice versa, which is one reason why the DFS companies are now getting involved in the legal sports book arena.<\/p>\n

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Overall, I think legalization is good for the recreational bettor who just wants to bet for entertainment and doesn’t really care about many of the things that pros are concerned with.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

As for professional bettors, I don’t know any who think legalization is a good prospect for them. The specter of vig increasing to -115 or higher is a major concern, as it would eliminate almost all pros from a path to profit in legal books. It’s not a big deal at present, because most pros do the majority of their wagering offshore. If the offshore industry isn’t shut down, legalization won’t affect much and may provide opportunities to supplement income by finding value in the legal books.\u00a0 But, I doubt there will be enough advantageous spots in the legal books to provide an acceptable return if access to offshore books is restricted.<\/p>\n

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The pros do business with offshore books for many reasons. For example, offshore books generally have more betting options, offer higher limits, and deal on credit. If the offshore option for U.S.-based pros is shut down by the government, serious pros would have to relocate their operations to locales where they could access offshore books. Or give it up entirely. Beating sports books requires a major effort and pros on the verge of retirement might just throw in the towel rather than make the major moves necessary to stay in business.<\/p>\n

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Another issue I’m curious about is whether legal books will be able to bar winning bettors, as they do in Vegas. New Jersey casinos split from the Vegas policy by not allowing casinos to bar card counters\u00a0 (although they do allow them to employ countermeasures that have close to the same effect). I guess books could limit wagers on apps for winning players, although that would depend on how the laws were written, assuming it was even addressed.<\/p>\n

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The sports betting industry mirrors online poker in a lot of ways. At the height of the poker boom, while the unregulated online poker rooms had their share of problems, most players would agree that it was the high-water mark for poker (both live and online) for a generation. The U.S. government was mostly successful in shutting it down, and now the online rooms in legal states are struggling to attract a player base that\u2019s anywhere near that of the world-wide player pools before the shutdown.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Similarly, despite the problems inherent in dealing with unregulated offshore books, if access to those books is shut off to American players who now enjoy the benefits of betting offshore, they\u2019ll likely look back to pre-legalization as the halcyon days of sports betting in the U.S. There\u2019s simply no chance that U.S. books will be able to offer the betting limits and relatively low vig, not to mention the extension of credit, that exists for serious bettors in the offshore books now.<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"youtube\"<\/a>\"instagram\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Let’s look at the effect of the SCOTUS decision on sports bettors in states where betting is legalized now or soon to be. To do this, I’ll need to address two separate categories, professional and casual bettors.   For those who want to bet on sports primarily for entertainment, the spread of legal books gives […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[2],"tags":[222,145,174,271],"yoast_head":"\nWhat Does Legalized Sports Betting Mean for the Players? - Gambling With An Edge<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/legalized-sports-betting-mean-players\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"What Does Legalized Sports Betting Mean for the Players? - Gambling With An Edge\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Let’s look at the effect of the SCOTUS decision on sports bettors in states where betting is legalized now or soon to be. 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