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As missouri Launching sports betting on Monday, people will be able to bet on how many points a particular athlete will score in a game — as long as it involves a Missouri college or university.
The ban on “proposition wagering,” though less comprehensive than in some states, highlights an area of growing concern as legal sports betting continues to expand in its 39th state. Supreme Court The way for this was cleared in 2018.
In the weeks leading up to the opening of sports betting in Missouri, one scandal after another has rocked the sports world. Two pitchers for the Cleveland Guardians were accused of accepting bribes to throw certain pitches. One nba The player was arrested as part of an alleged scheme to provide inside information to jurors. And the NCAA revoked the eligibility of six male college basketball players accused of manipulating their performance in games.
All prop bets center around the outcome, with one popular type of bet often focused on what individual players will do in a game – such as achieving a certain number of strikeouts in baseball, scoring a certain amount of points and rebounds in basketball, or exceeding a particular passing yardage in football.
For bookmakers, there can be a lot riding on an athlete, leaving those athletes vulnerable to threats or inducements to manipulate their performance.
A growing offer in sports betting
Sports betting operators took in more than $11 billion during the first three quarters of this year, up 13% from the same period last year, according to the American Gaming Association, which represents the industry.
Although national data is lacking about the prevalence of prop bets, they are “an increasingly popular way to provide engagement for any type of fan,” said Joe Maloney, the association’s senior vice president of strategic communications.
West VirginiaWhich was one of the first to allow sports betting after the court decision, is now collecting huge amounts of data from the industry. During a roughly one-month period this summer, prop bets comprised more than half of all bets placed through one of the largest sports betting platforms, said Brad Humphreys, economics professor and director of the Center for Gaming Research and Development at West Virginia University.
Additionally, he said, almost all bets involve negotiation, where two or more bets are grouped together under the umbrella of a larger bet. To win, one must be correct on every aspect of the bet, making the chances of success longer and the potential payout larger.
Because prop bets “intensify the ability to place multiple bets,” they carry a higher risk of developing addictive behavior for some bettors, said Rachel Wolberg, a research professor of epidemiology at the University of Massachusetts Amherst who has spent decades studying gambling.
Most states provide some funding for problem gambling services. Missouri’s new sports betting program allocates at least $5 million annually for that purpose.
No national standards for prop bets
Prop bets on professional athletes are currently allowed in every state that has legalized sports betting, although proposed legislation in New Jersey would ban them. Ohio Government. mike devine has urged state regulators to end player-specific micro-betting and recently told the Associated Press that he regretted signing legislation that legalized sports gambling in his state.
States have widely varying rules for betting on college athletes. More than a dozen states place no limits on collegiate prop bets, while a similar number ban all such bets. Other states fall somewhere in between. Missouri is one of more than a half-dozen states that have banned only sports involving their states’ college teams.
Missouri’s ban was included in a constitutional amendment authorizing sports betting, which won modest voter approval last year after a state-record $43 million campaign funded almost entirely by DraftKings and FanDuel, two major sports betting sites.
“We thought it was a good middle ground that worked in other states and that would preserve the integrity of sports here,” said Jack Cardetti, spokesman for the Sports Betting Alliance, an industry group that supported Missouri’s amendment.
The Sports Betting Alliance said a complete ban on prop bets would drive people to illegal and unregulated sportsbooks, putting bettors at greater risk and making it harder to spot problems.
Others are skeptical that Missouri’s narrowly tailored prop betting restrictions will have much of an impact in an Internet-connected society where people can easily bet on athletes playing anywhere in the US.
“It’s going to be like a Band-Aid on a dam that’s breaking here,” said Nathan Novemsky, a professor of marketing and psychology at Yale University, “because people will bet on other teams.”
betting without drive time
The Missouri Gaming Commission has three staffers who focus on regulating sports betting and is considering hiring a fourth, commission Chairman Jan Zimmerman said.
But the job of detecting fraudulent bets falls primarily to sports betting operators working with sports leagues and law enforcement agencies. Following the recent indictment of two Guardian pitchers, Major League Baseball announced an agreement with major sportsbooks to limit bets on individual pitches to $200 and exclude them from parlays.
Maloney said the criminal charges, player fines and policy changes involving prop bets are “a demonstration that the market is really working as intended.”
Scams aren’t stopping some Missouri residents who have been eagerly awaiting sports betting.
Brett Koenig, who lives in suburban St. Louis, sometimes crosses the Mississippi River into Illinois to legally bet on sports. Others living in the Kansas City area have crossed the border into Kansas at the first exit to place bets from smartphones. This drive allows bettors to bypass geolocation technology that prevents people from placing bets in states where it is not legal.
Koenig said he plans to bet on Monday night’s NFL games without leaving his home. If he likes the odds he can place some type of prop bet.
“This is something I’ve been waiting for for a long time,” said Koenig, who used social media to push for sports betting to be legalized. “I’m just glad to have the opportunity to do it and not have to drive 45 minutes across the river.”