By Wayne Parry | Associated Press
ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. — Americans have bet over $220 billion on sports with legal gambling outlets in the five years since the U.S. Supreme Court cleared the way for all 50 states to offer it, and the industry shows few signs of slowing despite some recent scandals that have put a spotlight on wagering safeguards.
When Sunday’s anniversary of the court ruling in a case brought by New Jersey arrives, two-thirds of the country will offer legal sports betting, with additional states likely to join in coming months or years.
The fast-growing industry is also far-reaching: its advertisements reach into most U.S. homes during sporting events and even non-sports programming. Few TV viewers have been spared from repeated ads featuring a Caesar character discussing sports gambling with members of the Manning football dynasty, or from actor Jamie Foxx placing sports bets in between takes on a film set.
“While the milestones of legalized sports betting that have led up to now are remarkable, this industry is excitingly still far from being fully realized,” said Jason Robins, CEO of DraftKings, one of the industry’s two dominant companies. “Legal betting is already part of mainstream sports culture, and I anticipate this trend will grow as adoption increases. The accessibility right now for fans to place a live, micro-bet during a game, for example, shares parallels with other smartphone-powered capabilities like hailing a ride, buying a stock, or playing a podcast.”
On May 14, 2018, the Supreme Court decided a case that had begun 10 years earlier in New Jersey as the longest of long shots: a bid to overturn a federal law, the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act, that restricted sports betting to just four states that met a 1991 deadline to legalize it.
Since then, some once-unthinkable changes have happened: Professional sports leagues, which fought New Jersey tooth and nail right up to the Supreme Court in an…
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