Page 11 - Delaware Lawyer - Winter 2023

the new sports book at Monmouth Park; he was joined by Drazin, the Monmouth Park CEO who had or- chestrated the legislative strategy. Murphy made a pair of $20 bets, one on Germany to win the World Cup and another on the New Jersey Devils to win the Stanley Cup. (He lost $40.)
Gambling executives took notice of the fact that in both states it was the governor who placed the first bets, a sign of the general acceptance of sports betting — and gambling more generally — by their constitu- ents. The author can’t recall a gover- nor rolling the dice at the craps table to open a new casino, yet here were political leaders gambling for the cameras.
Perhaps the most fascinating re- action to the Supreme Court’s deci- sion was by the sports leagues, the nominal losers in the litigation. The
leagues very quickly shifted from their doomsday predictions about the irreparable harm that would be- fall their businesses if sports betting was legalized to embracing it with open arms. Not long after PASPA was overturned, MGM Resorts, one of the nation’s top casino operators, became an official partner of the NBA, announced by the gaming gi- ant’s CEO at a press conference in New York alongside Commissioner Adam Silver. Not long after, the oth- er major sports leagues had commer- cial agreements with sports betting companies. When asked what had changed his views on sports betting, Gar y Bettman, the long-time Com- missioner of the National Hockey League, succinctly answered: “The Supreme Court.”
Thus started a new multi-billion- dollar industr y in the United States.
Sports Gambling and Addiction
Nearly five years since the Supreme Court’s ruling, over 30 states have legalized sports betting. A handful of companies have quickly emerged as leading sports betting operators — few of us have missed the fre- quent ads on television or social me- dia feeds. The proliferation of gam- bling advertising by the nascent legal sports betting industry — trying to attract customers in states that have legalized their product (and helping pass legislation in states that have not) — has downsides to it as well.
A small percentage of people who gamble are not able to do so in moderation and thereby keep their betting to a harmless form of en- tertainment. The National Coun- cil on Problem Gambling says that around 2% of American adults have a
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