Legalized Sports Betting Hasn’t Changed the way Most People Bet
Bottom Line: I remember the first sports bet I made. In January of 1988, as John Elway’s Denver Broncos were super hyped heading into the Super Bowl and one of my friends at school was just certain they would destroy the Redskins I made a bet. No points involved, just a straight up bet for $10 that the Redskins would win. Did I think the Redskins would win? Yes, did I really know what I was doing? Not really. I mostly just wanted to shut the kid up and that seemed to be a way to potentially do it. When the ‘Skins won I remember him bringing his piggy bank to school where we counted out $10 from it. Good times. Btw, I also remember my second and final sports bet. It was 2006 and heading into the NFL playoffs and my buddy the Greek from Real Radio hyped some teams I didn’t agree with. We bet all games in the playoffs with the most wins determining the winner. The loser was to take the winner out for a nice meal. When I won The Greek took me to Rachael’s which remains the first and only time, I’ve been in a strip club. And true story, I never looked at the girls on stage. So, I’m a retired sports bettor having successfully placed two personal bets. And while my two stories are specific, the way I went about them is the norm. Personal bets.
While about two-thirds of the country now has legalized sports betting, and an estimated $16 billion was bet on the Super Bowl, only $1 billion of that came through “legal” channels like casinos or services like DraftKings. With only a sixteenth of sports betting for the biggest event of the year coming through official services, it shows most sports betting is still done for the fun of it. It also means Florida’s inability to overcome legal challenges to enable sports betting doesn’t appear to be impacting the betting habits of most folks anyway. As for that effort to once again attempt the legalization of sports betting, the efforts led by DraftKings and Fan Duel to successfully propose an amendment to Florida’s Constitution that would be on our 2024 ballots is underway. DraftKings CEO recently said he’s “very confident” they’ll be successful this time.