A Short Treatise On Sports Gambling and the Law: How America Regulates Its Most Lucrative Vice

On May 14, 2018, the U.S. Supreme Court issued its seminal ruling in Murphy v. NCAA, which held that the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (PASPA) violated the Tenth Amendment of the United States Constitution. This ruling, in conjunction with other societal changes, has opened the floodgates for states to liberalize laws on sports betting. In less than two years since the Supreme Court’s Murphy decision, nineteen U.S. states, in addition to Washington D.C., have legalized sports betting in some form. Meanwhile, eleven states have specifically legalized online sports betting. This article (or, perhaps more accurately stated, short treatise) is the first of its kind to provide a detailed analysis of how the United States regulates sports gambling in the aftermath of Murphy v. NCAA. The article examines closely the history of sports gambling, seminal legal decisions involving the sports betting industry, new state regulatory systems that have emerged since the Supreme Court’s Murphy decision, newfound legal risks for companies that operate in sports gaming markets, and important matters of public policy related to regulating America’s most lucrative vice.