Legal Sports Betting Raises Risk of Game Fixing

With dozens of states rushing to capitalize on the U.S. Supreme Court lifting a federal ban on sports gambling, will game fixing scenarios become more common?

The four major pro sports leagues and the NCAA think so, and have argued for years that expanding legal betting will lead to more game fixing. The pro leagues have sought, unsuccessfully so far, a cut of state gambling revenues to increase monitoring.

Meanwhile, architects of New Jersey’s successful legal challenge to the sports gambling ban say those fears are overstated and that bringing sports betting out of the shadows will make it easier to detect illegal activity.

Yet the prospect of easy, legal access to sports gambling for athletes and others has many in sports concerned.

“They’re going to create a bigger pool for more kids and for more money to get involved,” said Jamall Anderson, a running back on the 1996 Boston College football team whose players were found to have bet against their own team. “It’s really going to create a big mess, I think.”

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