U.S. Courts: Delaware sports betting plan is illegal

From Reuters,

A U.S. appeals court ruled on Monday that a plan by Delaware to allow sports betting violates federal law, siding with major sports leagues who had argued it would promote game fixing.

A three-judge panel on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit ruled against the state which wanted to allow betting on single games in all the major sports from Sept. 1 at three of its racetrack betting locations.

Delaware, which is seeking additional revenue to overcome an $800 million budget deficit, would have been the second state after Nevada to allow betting on sporting events.

Attorneys for the U.S. professional leagues for football, baseball, basketball and hockey had sought an injunction against the plan on the grounds that sports betting would encourage game fixing and violate a 1992 federal law that sought to prevent the spread of sports betting.

Circuit judge Theodore McKee said the Delaware plan would violate the 1992 law. The court was due to issue an order explaining its ruling later on Monday.

I’ve discussed this matter previously, and this outcome is not particularly surprising…

The state law claim, which is basically the chance vs. skill argument could carry some weight though.  Although it certainly wouldn’t apply to everyone, some would use injury reports, injuries, point spreads, etc. to determine which single team they should bet on.  On its face, that sounds like more than chance.  In case you were wondering, this is the same logic the NFL used to allow its teams to enter into lottery sponsorships.

The chance that some people would be able to “fix” games or to make their wager based on more than chance was too much for the court to overlook.  With the order due later today, hopefully we’ll gain some more insight into the court’s reasoning.