CEI Requests the Sports Betting Ban be Repealed
A recent report has requested that the United States Congress ends the prohibition on sports betting. This request came straight from the CEI (Competitive Enterprise Institute) which is a think tank that turns its eye to public policy around the U.S.
This report shows research that the ban does not currently stop citizens from betting billions of dollars at sporting events. In addition, it does not do anything to safeguard the integrity of any sports games. Instead, it prevents the collection of billions of dollars in tax revenue while forcing people to turn to the black market.
This report further goes on to state that this ban has actually increased the risks of corruption and match-fixing in sports. They argue that this a major reason for the ban to be dismantled.
This written was co-authored by Michelle Minton and Steven Titch after extensive research on the subject. The titled the CEI report “Time to End the Madness around March Madness” after the phenomenon that grabs the attention of sports fan in the second week of March that does not end until the first week of April. They estimate that $150 billion to $400 billion dollars are spent during that time by Americans who are betting on sporting events.
They found that between 95% to 99% of all of this betting and all of this commerce is done through illegal means that are usually based offshore. Not only does that deprive the economy of the revenue that could be garnered from taxing betting, it also keeps Americans from any protections that they would have found if the betting market was legal.
This ban affects all states except for Nevada from legally regulating any bets that are placed on sporting events. This ban went into effect in 1992, with PAPSA (Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act) and stopped all states that did not currently allow sports betting from being able to license, promote, or authorize this activity in the future.
The CEI states that from their perspective, the lawmakers should be treating this issue like they would any other form of legal gambling in the United States. They call for Congress to repeal PAPSA or revise it so that the states could decide what they wanted. This would put the issue directly in each states hands regarding whether they wanted to legalize and regulate all betting on sports or if they wanted to continue to lose the tax revenue.
