Supreme Court Ruling on Allowing Sports Betting Will Affect Esports
By Nicholas Barth ·
Today, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the federal ban on sports betting was unconstitutional and has opened up the door for states to allow legal betting on traditional sports and esports.
On Monday, May 14th the U.S. Supreme Court voted 7-2 to overturn the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (PASPA), which had been a federal law passed in 1992 that barred state-authorized sports betting. Nevada was the only state that was exempted from PASPA and soon its city of Las Vegas became the premiere destination for legal betting in the United States.
However, with today's Supreme Court ruling, every state will have the ability to pass legislation to legalize betting on sports if they so choose. New Jersey, Delaware, Mississippi, New York and Pennsylvania are expected to be among the first states to do so, according to ESPN.
This historic decision will not only affect the world of traditional sports, as it has now opened up the door for legal betting on esports. As in the world of traditional sports and gambling, esports has seen the negative effects of betting on official matches, such as match fixing. One of the most infamous instances of this in the world of esports was with the iBuyPower Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO) match fixing scandal that saw an entire group of players get banned from Valve sponsored CS:GO events.
Legalization is a good thing if we embrace it and work with operators to address key issues.
— Bryce Blum (@esportslaw) May 14, 2018
Traditional sports leagues in the US have gotten this issue wrong for decades. Match fixing, addiction, and underage gambling all get worse in an unregulated marketplace.
However, with the ability for states to create heavily regulated and legal systems for sports betting, the hope is that issues, such as match fixing, underage gambling and addiction, will now be able to be properly addressed, according to esports lawyer Bryce Blum.
With the esports industry having the opportunity to learn from the mistakes of its traditional sports counterparts in the world of gambling, there is hope that it can embrace legalized betting in the states that choose to implement it and work to avoid negative situations, such as the iBuyPower scandal and other issues that have plagued traditional sports since the passing of PASPA.
(cover photo courtesy of Helena Kristiansson for ESL)