Sports Betting Laws in the U.S.A.
Whenever I tell one of my friends that I like to bet on sports, the inevitable question I always get is “isn’t that against the law?” I then have to explain that no, it is not against the law, but there are only a few states that have trusted US sportsbooks where you can go to play the odds. Isn’t that odd? I mean, think about it. The law says you can bet on sports in two states, and there is no law that says you can’t bet on sports in other states, but there aren’t any sportsbooks in most states. Confused? Don’t worry, it’ll all make sense in a little while.
The whole point of this page is to help you make sense of these asinine laws. Specifically, there are three laws that work together to make sure that a sportsbook has to function in Nevada, Delaware, or outside of the United States to be legal. It’s sort of the equivalent of the NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) syndrome. Sports betting is obviously good for the economy. Nevada takes in over $3 billion annually from sportsbooks. Think about the billions and billions of dollars that would go right back into a state’s revenue if there were sportsbooks in every state. Instead, pretty much all of that money goes to legal overseas sites.
None of this really matters to the average bettor, though. The bottom line is that people want to bet on sports, but since only two states have land-based books, online betting sites are their only option. That’s fine, though, because there are some really awesome sites out there that are free to join and accept players from every state. These sites are legal, safe, and simple to use. This page will tell you why this is so.
Yes, sports betting is legal. The problem is that it’s hard to find a legal bookmaker in the US unless you live in Nevada or Delaware. There are three laws (which we will expand upon later) that limit our options in the US. Thankfully, some excellent legal online sportsbooks are out of reach of American law because they function outside of the country. There is no law preventing you or me from using these sites. The laws that do exist only affect underground bookmaking operations and those who make a business out of taking bets.
More Details... Is It Safe To Bet At Online Sportsbooks?
You could spend your hard-earned money travelling to Vegas, but you’ll probably end up spending most of your money getting there. You would be better off just staying at home and using one of the legal online sportsbooks that we recommend. You can find everything that a land-based venue has to offer and more. You don’t have to leave your house to be the kling klang king of the rim ram room.
TrustedUSSportsbooks.com considers the following sites to be the most trusted US sportsbooks available to US players.
When sports betting fanatics want a peek at the odds, Bovada is the first place they go. For over twenty years, Bovada has had an edge on the competition by providing players with every perk, feature, and creature comfort under the sun. You will find a bounty of bonuses, sportsbook deposit and payout methods, wager and odds types, and much more. If convenience is important to you, you will jump up and down for joy when you use Bovada’s mobile betting service. It lets you use your cellular phone to bet from any location across the globe.
Best of all, it’s all on the up and up! Bovada is so legit that John Grisham could write a book about it. Take any fears you have about getting in trouble with the law and sweep them into the gutter where they belong, because Bovada operates out of Canada where US laws don’t have any sway. In fact, Bovada is so on-the-up-and-up that they have a gaming license and the prestigious Certificate of Good Standing issued by the Kahnawake Gaming Commission, which oversees all operations of this overseas site. Bovada is so great that even if you lose, you’re still a winner!
Since 1991, the king of online betting has been BetOnline. It is one of the very oldest and most established online sportsbooks in the world. Residents from every state are welcome to join, and there is no cost to be part of the action. Just make sure you are old enough to bet and the fun can be yours! No matter what sport you are fanatical about, BetOnline has it on tap. Football? Check. Baseball? Check. Snooker? Wait, what the heck is that? Oh, it’s just billiards. BetOnline has a laundry list of wager types including everything from regular odds like straight bets and totals to exotic odds like parlays and teasers.
At BetOnline, you’ll never have to worry about fracturing any laws, because there aren’t any that prevent a US citizen from betting on sports. What the law says is that if a sportsbook is going to operate inside the US, it has to be in Nevada or Delaware. BetOnline operates out of Panana City, Panama, so no worries there. It’s been around for more than two decades and no one has ever gotten in any legal trouble, so it must be doing something right. But don’t take our word for it, ask any of the more than one million loyal members what they think of BetOnline. Our guess is that they would tell you it’s awesome.
The three aforementioned laws that dictate sports betting in the United States are the Wire Act (1961), the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (1992), and the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA). The first two are the most important laws, but all three work together to ensure that only Nevada and Delaware have land-based sports betting. The primary reason for these laws is to prevent gangsters from making money off sports betting. They do not really affect individual bettors.
In 1961, Congress passed the Federal Wire Act, which made it a federal offense to transmit information related to betting across state lines using a wire communications facility. Much controversy surrounds the Wire Act, and always has. Some critics have argued that internet betting should be exempt, because Wi-Fi is not a wire communications facility. Lawmakers have amended the Wire Act several times in the past few decades in order to change with the times. Recent attempts to push back the Wire Act to its original intent and language have mostly fallen flat in Congress.
In 1992, Congress passed a law that banished all sports betting to the deserts of Nevada and the narrow spaces of Delaware. The Wire Act apparently did not go far enough in preventing sports betting-related organized crime. Unfortunately, PASPA ruffled more than a few feathers as politicians in some states have labeled the law unconstitutional and biased. New Jersey recently tried and failed to get PASPA repealed, arguing that the law gives Nevada and Delaware an unfair economic advantage.
This law is perhaps the most controversial of them all, mostly because it was sneakily attached to a completely unrelated homeland security bill called the Safe Port Act in 2006. It was later revealed that not one person in Congress had actually read the thing before passing it. So much for a functioning government, eh? What the UIGEA does is prevent certain types of monetary transactions from one account to another. Since the books that we suggest are based outside of the US, the only way the UIGEA affects them is by not allowing credit or debit card payouts.
This is where the law gets even more murky and grey. Not only does the federal government have sports betting laws, each state has its own laws as well. Most states do not actually have any language that relates directly to bookmaking or sports betting, but some do. It doesn’t really matter though, because all of the existing sports betting laws target underground bookies, not regular citizens. The most important take-home point here is that there is no law (either state or federal) that prevents an individual bettor from using an offshore site. So feel free to check out any of these trusted US sports betting sites today and join the action.