America’s distrust of sports betting can be traced to the night of 21 September 1919. That’s when several members of baseball’s Chicago White Sox met with gambling boss Arnold Rothstein in a New York hotel room to throw the following month’s World Series. The scandal that unraveled after the White Sox’s sluggish five-games-to-three loss to the Cincinnati Reds hurled into the fire the innocence of a nation and led to the appointment of baseball’s first commissioner: Kenesaw Mountain Landis. It also created a firm distaste for any implication that sports were somehow compromised. History forgets the eight players involved were…

Rob Manfred, commissioner of North America’s Major League Baseball (MLB), has said he would be prepared to hold further talks over wider legalisation of sports betting in the US. Nevada is the only US state in which wagering on sports is legal, but a number of other states have introduced legislation that could legalise the sector. However, plans have been met with a mixed response from professional leagues in the country. National Basketball Association commissioner Adam Silver has said he would be open to the idea of expansion, while NFL American football league chief Roger Goodell last week reiterated his…

American sports fans are poised to wager $36.5 billion on Major League Baseball (MLB) this year, according to an estimate by the American Gaming Association (AGA) released just days before opening day. Of the $36.5 billion that will be wagered, $35.4 billion – or 97% – will be placed illegally through illicit offshore websites and sports bookies. Americans wager roughly $154 billion a year on sports illegally due to the 1992 federal prohibition on sports betting. “The amount wagered illegally on professional baseball is another sign the federal ban on sports betting has become an utter failure,” said Geoff Freeman,…