March 12, 2023 is not just any Sunday. It’s “Selection Sunday” — the day the NCAA names the 68 teams that will play in the men’s college basketball tournament, as well as the field of 68 teams for the women’s tournament.
It’s a day that basketball fans – especially those who play – see as a kind of holiday. Anyone who’s seen March Madness knows there’s a lot of money behind those brackets.
But the scale of betting and its legal growth in recent years has turned the annual event into huge business.
When all is said and done – from office pools and betting at bookies to online gaming – NCAA tournament time is at the center of billions of dollars in sports betting.
WalletHub estimates that more than $10 billion worth of gambling will take place around the 2023 edition of the NCAA tournament. Over 50% of Americans will place an online bet on the event.
Those are big numbers, and they don’t all come in strictly exaggerated methods.
WalletHub
According to WalletHub, around 40% of the money is used illegally in the games. However, this also means that the remaining tournament gambling is conducted using legal methods.
This legal share has grown as the number of places where legal bets can be placed on games – online and in person – has increased in recent years.
In 2018, the Supreme Court overturned the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act of 1992, opening the door for sports betting across US states, which stormed into the space and continue to join.
American Gambling Society
A total of 36 states and the District of Columbia have legalized sports betting in one form or another. Another nine are thinking about it.
The rules vary by state. Some do not allow wagering on some in-state collegiate-level teams. Others don’t allow novelty bets where there is a recognizable answer, such as B. What color headband a player may wear.
But the larger trend is unmistakable: Legalized sports gambling is becoming a huge industry. Anyone who listens to a sports podcast can tell you about the proliferation of “over/under” or “spread” segments.
And unlike other aspects of American life, this trend appears to be bridging the partisan divide. Look again at this legalized gambling map with the blue and red shading of the 2020 presidential election.
American Gambling Society
Of the 36 states that have legalized sports gambling, 2020 voted for President Joe Biden and 16 of them voted for former President Donald Trump. Another group of other states from both ends of the political spectrum are also considering legalization. Overall, it’s a fairly even partisan split.
What can bring together a nation so often divided along red and blue lines? Green. All of these bets bring in a lot of tax revenue for states that legalize sports betting. The scale and speed of tax revenue growth are impressive.
sports grip
In the five years since the Supreme Court ruling, total state tax revenues related to sports betting have increased from $38 million in 2018 to $126 million in 2019 to over $1 billion a year, according to SportsHandle.com increased in 2022.
Although some of this increase is due to more states legalizing sports gambling, some is due to increasing tax revenues in states that have legalized the practice.
In fact, more than $2.6 billion in state tax revenue has been derived from sports betting since the Supreme Court ruling. Over half of that — $1.5 billion — came from last year alone.
For states starving for revenue, sports betting could be a new source of revenue. The next few weeks will flush a lot of money into the state coffers.
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If you want proof, think Massachusetts. The state only recently legalized sports betting, but it made sure that digital wagering, the ability to gamble on your phone, went live this Friday — just in time for the NCAA tournament.
And as online gambling has become something of a tax revenue machine, states have been looking for other ways to make money, or at least find new ways to get people to gamble.
bookmaker.com
Take the Oscars on Sunday. Fancy “Everything everywhere at once” or “Tár”?
Head to Colorado, Indiana, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan or New Jersey. In these six states, you can bet on who will go home with a gold statue, according to Bookies.com. No brackets required.
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