How Could Sports Leagues Profit From Recent Sports Betting Regulations
With this year’s decision by the Supreme Court to allow states to decide on their own the legalization of sports betting the major winners could very well be the sports leagues.
What’s currently considered is what’s commonly known as the “integrity fee”. It involves the leagues receiving a certain percentage of the total amount at stake by players. Needless to say the sports books and casino are not keen to the idea as this amount will be higher than what casinos currently pay on taxes, which currently only applies to the total revenue. An integrity fee will take money from not only the winnings but also from the losing tickets.
These integrity fees have the purpose of helping the leagues to have a fund to assist them in the increased cost for monitoring the integrity of their games and everything around it. This is because of the obvious reasons that the legalization of sports betting will cause more people to participate in it. Currently the bill proposed in New York has a one percent tax while New Jersey’s does not.
With more and more states having pending bills on their respective legislatures it is only to be expected that the popularity of sports betting will expand even more than what it is. Currently there are dozens of offshore pay per head services that aid local bookmakers and Nevada sportsbooks to run their business, with freely available guides on how to become a bookie and to manage every aspect of their operation on a streamlined way. As more and more states regulate sports betting this is expected to increase.
Another point which the leagues can use on their behalf and one which the NBA has expressed high interest, is that of intellectual property. Simply put since they are the ones providing the games, in other words facilitating the medium in which the bets take place, they would very well make a case for them deserving a piece of the betting pie.
Something else to consider and that which several leagues have reported to be very interested in, is the information or data pertaining to games and player stats. Every sportsbook needs a source to gather the data which is used not only to grade games but also for oddsmakers to come up with the betting line. Currently these numbers are reported from the source, either be the NFL, NBA, etc. If the leagues get total control of this data, which is still to be evaluated by state legislatures, they can very well sell it to sports books and add yet another source or revenue.
It will be very interesting to see how far the leagues decide to take the newly found legal state of sports gambling going forward. They can even go as far as incorporating their own betting software as part of their already established premium TV pass, or even a betting booth inside their arenas and stadiums.
It may not be very far fetch to think of a day in which we go to watch our favorite major league baseball team and right there at the stadium been able to place our tickets.
