As the push to legalize sports gambling in the United States nears a crucial Supreme Court decision, states hoping to reap a financial windfall could face another hurdle: attracting younger players used to online fantasy sports.
The explosion in popularity of daily fantasy sports has created a generation of sports fans more attuned to gauging individual player statistics than how two teams may fare against each other, the challenge at the heart of traditional sports wagering.
Even more important, experts say, is whether states will be able to offer online sports wagering to a demographic raised on smartphones and laptops. That will depend heavily on how the Supreme Court decides New Jersey's case, expected this spring.
New Jersey has challenged the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act, the 1992 federal law forbidding all but Nevada and three other states from authorizing gambling on college and professional sports. Only Nevada offers betting on single games.
How the court rules will affect more than two dozen states that are pushing sports betting legislation or considering it if New Jersey is successful. If it is legalized, one of the challenges will be capturing sports fans.
The stakes are huge. Currently, illegal sports wagering is estimated from the tens of billions of dollars annually to as high as US$100 billion or more.
A survey commissioned by the Fantasy Sports Trade Association in 2016 estimated more than 57 million people participated in some form of fantasy sports, in which competitors pick rosters of players and win or lose based on how those players perform.
Noting that many daily fantasy sports players migrated from the online poker world, Chris Grove, managing director of gambling research firm Eilers and Krejcik, said serious players probably won't shy away from traditional sports wagering.
If the court strikes down the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act as unconstitutional, New Jersey and other states would be free to implement and regulate online and in-person sports gambling.
However, if the court rules more narrowly – leaving PASPA standing but allowing New Jersey to have sports gambling at casinos and racetracks – it could stall online gambling.
"The big money from sports betting will be the online component," former Democratic New Jersey state Senator Raymond Lesniak, a driving force behind the state's effort, said. "But we have to wait to see, if we win the case, how we win it."
Source: GMB / The Associated Press / CS Monitor
