Whether you want to place a bet on how many points a team will score or if an individual player will be the next to get a touchdown, there are plenty of ways to wager on sports. However, betting on sports can be confusing to those who are new to the game. Here are a few things to keep in mind.
Official betting
A term front and center in the US sports betting conversation is official betting, where leagues seek to gain a role as primary stakeholders in legal sports gambling — and ideally profit from it — via a direct share of bets placed on their respective properties. That’s a tall order, but the battle over official data appears to be one way for leagues to exert control over US sports betting, even as state laws are crafted.
In February 2018, the NBA and MLB circulated a lobbying document pushing for a requirement that states use official league data in their sports betting laws. Tennessee was the first state to include this in its law, and Illinois passed a similar measure in June 2019. The Indiana statute defines “official league data” as a tier 1 sport wager.
The state of Missouri is the only exception to this. Attempts to pass sports betting legislation in 2023 were blocked with filibusters, but the state’s legislature may try again this year or put a proposal on a ballot for voters to decide on.