Sport Betting Is Legal Again. Here’s How to Make it More Popular Than Ever Before.
Sports betting is legal again!
The first time since 1992, and as of last month, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the federal government could not prevent states from endorsing sports betting and supporting avenues for its expression.
The law that the court struck down, The Professional and Amateur Sports Act, forbid states from sanctioning sports betting. The move was instituted after a significant campaign by then Senator from New Jersey, Bill Bradley, and it was intended to protect sports from being influenced by gambling operations.
Now, those restrictions are relieved, and reactions are mixed.
Professional sporting leagues have expressed concerns that sports betting will negatively impact the integrity of their games. Surely, Pete Rose has an opinion about this fear.
At the same time, the leagues don’t want to miss out on the opportunity for sports betting to increase and improve engagement with their games. Several professional sports leagues are experiencing significant declines in their tv ratings. The NFL, the most popular sport in America, saw viewership decline 9% last season. Similarly, MLB ratings are down 6% from last year. Therefore, league officials see the reintroduction of sports betting as a way to heighten audience engagement and possibly increase viewership. As Gabriel Feldman, the director of Tulane Law School’s sports law program, recently told The New York Times, “Fans will become much more focused on gambling than following a team. It will make every second of every game of every week interesting to fans as it will give everyone something to root for.”
Interestingly, many casinos, the stalwarts of the betting industry, don’t necessarily anticipate a significant uptick in business from the court’s decision. After interviewing a collection of casino owners, The Wall Street Journal concluded that “Despite the hype, casino operators say expectations are modest.”
All of this leads to a necessary and vital question for betting industry. Who will participate in this new opportunity, and how will they do that?
The New Sports Betting
One reason that casino owners may be skeptical of the supreme court’s impact on their business is that traveling to a casino to place bets feels like an antiquated activity that’s unlikely to captivate younger audiences.
Moreover, for many, the idea of doing business with a bookie is far from an ideal scenario. Most people have seen movies featuring shady bookies taking bets in back allies and keeping tabs on their customers. This notion isn’t appealing to younger, digital-first generations.
Instead, the future of sports betting is going to be a lot of versatile and mobile-friendly. In a commentary on the court’s decision, the Times notes, “Placing bets will be done on mobile devices, fueled and endorsed by the lawmakers and sports officials who opposed it for so long.”
In other words, the days of making trips to Vegas to place bets on sports games may be a thing of the past.
Even so, for sports betting to move online, there are some significant hurdles to overcome before this expression of sports betting enters the mainstream. For instance, how will digital platforms guarantee that payments are made when competition is completed? In addition, these platforms will have to know who is betting on these platforms, and they will need auditable records in case a conflict of interest should arise.
Fortunately, new technology has an answer for these problems, and new platforms are emerging to meet the demand for legalized sports betting.
Platforms for the Future
The blockchain is nearly 10 years old, and its capabilities are extraordinary. Many compare it to the internet 2.0 because of the way that it facilitates new platforms but with more robust mechanisms for transacting value and maintaining transparency. In nearly every way, the blockchain is technology that’s uniquely suited for our times.
Companies are building on top of the blockchain to produce compelling new platforms, which could prove to be the avenue through which legalized betting becomes profitable and popular again.
For example, MeVu, a decentralized, peer-to-peer betting platform makes it possible for anyone to participate in sports betting from an easy-to-use mobile app. Our app makes it possible for anyone to create custom bets about anything from a friendly competition to more official competition.
For the sports betting industry, MeVu has most major U.S. and E.U. sporting leagues on its platform. A lot has changed since sports betting was outlawed in 1992, and platforms like MeVu look a lot more like a modern betting experience than using a casino or a bookie. Like most blockchain-based platforms, MeVu has a native digital currency that decentralizes the network while using Ether, one of the most popular cryptocurrencies in the world, to facilitate bets.
Regardless of the bet, the blockchain makes the process simple, secure, and automatic. When a competition ends, smart contracts automatically execute payouts, and there is an audit able record of wagers placed and earnings accrued.
This level of accessibility and transparency aligns with our current cultural ethos, and so it feels serendipitous that the Supreme Court’s ruling and the arrival of blockchain technology is occurring at the same time. It could mean a holistic revival for betting, but in a way that is fun and secure, not shady and untrustworthy.
