LVASports.com's resident expert Fezzik responds:
It's clear to me that Atlantic City, facing growing economic problems, should look to legalize sports betting. The right way to do this is to accept bets only on pro sports and not college, at least initially.
The main objection to sports betting legalization has always been the worry of a scandal involving teams shaving points or throwing games. This is a legitimate concern and I'm convinced it occurs in the college game much more than people believe, especially in basketball. A fixer could easily bet $50,000, spreading it around on some obscure college team (MAC, Conference USA, etc.), without ever drawing attention. It's beyond naive to assume that the three or four point-shaving scandals uncovered in the last 20 years are all, or most, of those that occurred. The true number is likely more like 30 or 40, meaning that only 10% were actually discovered! Seriously, all it would take is for the point guard of Elon to have a subpar game, going 2-for-15 from the field. Who would even notice?
The situation is completely different in the pros. All the games are high profile and televised, and the players are all making so much money that they're insulated from this sort of thing to a great degree. What could possibly motivate a player making a million dollars a year to jeopardize that for maybe a $30,000 payday? It's no surprise that the only fixing scandal in major American pro sports has involved a ref, not a player.
So clearly the safe compromise is to allow pros-only betting in major American sports. Some say that betting should be allowed only on international sports. I think that's a terrible idea, as the betting volume would be so low, it wouldn't even matter to the jurisdiction offering the wagers.
Las Vegas has understood for years that the sports book is one tremendous loss leader. It doesn't pay for it's space, but it brings in people from all over the country who gamble and spend money in other areas of the casino after the games are over. Atlantic City could benefit as well, it just has to make a move to get the party started.
