By Jane Mitchell | MilneNews
The Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (PASPA) that was passed in 1992 prohibited the act of sports betting online in every state, bar four – Nevada, Oregon, Delaware, and Montana – that already had laws in place.
The Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act made it unlawful for a state to “sponsor, operate, advertise, promote, license, or authorize by law” sports betting. According to a CNN report, four states were already exempted from the law — Nevada, Montana, Delaware, and Oregon — that had already enacted that sports lotteries were allowed to continue online betting. The report states that the law was originally passed due to concern that online sports gambling might change the nature of sporting events from entertainment to a medium for gambling.
For more information and an excellent definitive guide to U.S. Gambling Laws & Regulations across all of the US and which states you can bet online, we highly recommend you visit the experts over at USA Legal Betting and check out their detailed online betting laws by state.
PASPA originally stopped any new states from legalizing sports betting for a staggering 26 years.
However, as The New York Times reports, the Supreme Court said the law was unconstitutional striking down the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (PASPA Act) and ruled in a 6-3 decision in favor of legalizing sports betting on a federal level, giving each state the power to choose if they want to legalize online sports betting sites in their retrospective states and how online betting will be governed and regulated.
“The legalization of sports gambling requires an important policy choice, but the choice is not ours to make,” Justice Samuel Alito said. “Congress can regulate sports gambling directly, but if it elects not to do so, each state is free to act on its own.”
Steve Vladeck, CNN Supreme Court analyst and professor of law at the University of Texas School of Law said that the decision “clears the way for all states to make their own decisions about legalizing sports betting, and in one fell swoop gets rid of Nevada’s monopoly on the subject and the 1992 federal statute that had protected it.”
This decision allows sports betting to be introduced in many states and also allows them to combine sports betting and casino gambling as part of one offer. An idea that is gaining much traction and popularity across the US.
To put it simply, legal online gambling in the U.S. is growing.
Which states allow online betting?
Several states in the US have already passed laws allowing online gambling with many more expected to follow, those being New Jersey, Nevada, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Indiana, Iowa, Rhode Island, Mississippi, and Oregon.
