States That Legalized Sports Gambling

It was a big year for sports betting in 2019 as nine states legalized the activity, bringing the total of states with legal sports betting to 20. As neighboring states post increasing sports betting revenue, pressure builds for lawmakers to provide a regulated environment to bet on sports and capture money that could be put toward education or other programs. Voters said yes to legalizing sports betting in all three states where the question was on the ballot: Louisiana, Maryland, and South Dakota (for the casino-friendly city of Deadwood).

While the U.S. presidential election process had not yet produced a clear winner by Wednesday morning, it was a night of decisive victories for the tide of legal sports betting.

Indiana joined the group of states with legal sports betting, both retail and mobile, in 2019. The Hoosier State offers several online sportsbooks including – DraftKings, FanDuel, and BetRivers. With the recent launch of Unibet, the state now has eight mobile sportsbooks. Read more on Indiana Online Gambling.

Voters said yes to legalizing sports betting in all three states where the question was on the ballot: Louisiana, Maryland, and South Dakota (for the casino-friendly city of Deadwood). In Maryland, 66% of voters approved, and in South Dakota, 59% of voters approved. In Louisiana, where the vote was handled by parish, 55 of 64 parishes approved, including key cities like Baton Rouge and New Orleans.

In May 2018, the Supreme Court opened the floodgates. The water continues to rush through. Three more states adopted legalized sports wagering this week, with Maryland, Louisiana, and South Dakota. Montana was the first state to legalize sports betting this year, joining the likes of New Jersey, Pennsylvania and several other states that legalized the activity in 2018.

That brings the grand total to 26 states (plus Washington, D.C.) that have either launched legal sports betting or passed the legislation and are waiting to launch. (Colorado, Nebraska, and Virginia voters also said yes to expanding casino gaming in their states.)

But the newest three states don’t just flip a switch now and turn on the gambling faucet. Lawmakers have to pass companion legislation to determine specific details like tax rates. In all three states, it will likely take until 2021 to fully pass and launch sports betting. (Legalizing mobile sports betting must happen separately; only a handful of the states that have legalized in-person sports betting have also legalized mobile sports betting.)

DraftKings and FanDuel, the fantasy sports companies now rapidly launching legal sportsbooks across the country, spent heavily on TV and radio advertising in the weeks leading up to Election Day in states where sports betting was on the ballot. In Louisiana, each company spent more than $250,000.

Since 2018, when the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the federal ban on sports betting, gaming companies have been in an arms race to launch sportsbooks in states that have legalized.

And in the past year, a second arms race has unfolded: a battle to rack up betting sponsorships directly with pro sports franchises.

DraftKings has announced sports betting partnerships with the New England Patriots, New York Giants, and Philadelphia Eagles in the NFL, and with the MLB’s Chicago Cubs. (DraftKings went public in April by merging with an already-public SPAC; its shares are up 110% since.) FanDuel has signed betting partnerships with the Denver Broncos and with the Memphis Grizzlies, the company’s first NBA team betting deal. Meanwhile, the Tennessee Titans signed a betting deal with BetMGM.

“We’re seeing record engagement levels,” DraftKings CEO Jason Robins said on Yahoo Finance in the first week of the 2020 NFL season. “It’s not just because we’ve entered new states—even in the existing states we were in at the start of last NFL season, like New Jersey and West Virginia, we’ve seen enormous year-over-year growth in those markets as well.”

As the tide of legalization continues, expect the frenzied race to sign team betting deals to accelerate. And that trend is sure to change the fabric of U.S. pro sports leagues over time.

—

States That Have Legalized Sports Gambling

Daniel Roberts is an editor-at-large at Yahoo Finance and closely covers sports business. Follow him on Twitter at @readDanwrite.