Up until 2001, Las Vegas banned betting on its local college football and basketball games, allegedly to protect the integrity of the games by discouraging game fixing by paying off players, coaches, and/or refs. But since that ban on college sports betting was lifted in 2001, there has been no hint of any illegal activity in local college games.
As far as instituting a ban on betting on pro sports games should Vegas get a home sports team, there has been no discussion of banning betting on NHL games, even though an NHL team here is pretty much considered a done deal. The NHL hired a sports-betting watchdog firm (Sportradar) to monitor the betting activity on NHL games, but the NHL has made no requests to date that Vegas sports books ban betting on the games.
As far as NFL games are concerned, should the Raiders move to Vegas (now up in the air, since Sheldon Adelson pulled out of the deal), it’s a long-known fact that NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell is opposed to betting on all sports.
On Feb. 2 in a pre-Super Bowl interview, when if he had any concerns about possibility of the Raiders moving from Oakland to Las Vegas, Goodell responded, "We want to protect the integrity of the game, and that's the line we will always take. ... We have rules that are in place. The Raiders have not asked us to compromise those rules as they relate to our policies."
Goodell added that he would have a problem if a casino had "an ownership position" with an NFL team or stadium. So, Adelson backing out of the deal could, in fact, make the move more acceptable to the NFL (assuming some other non-casino-affiliated financing materialized).
But whether or not the NFL would require restrictions on betting should a Raiders move to Vegas be approved has still not been addressed by Goodell.
