Other states move to legalize Betting Sports

Other states move to legalize Betting Sports

By DAVID MOULTON
I like to gamble. Always have. When I was 11, 12 years old, during the occasional weekend with my father, he would buy me a football “sheet.”
He would pay the $5 or $10 entry and I would try to pick four winners. If I did, I got to keep the money. Going 4-for-4 paid 10-1 odds. That’s $50 or $100, back in the 70s, for a pre-teen. Been hooked ever since. Fortunately, I’m not alone. America loves to gamble. Thirty-seven states have some form of gambling, not including lotteries.
This just in — America is broke. Now more than ever, states are looking at ways to raise revenues. Fortunately, “gambling” is a way for states to do just that. But for over 30 years, states have been reluctant to go after the really big money. The controversial money. The billions that could legally be gambled on sports.
It’s been the equivalent of Prohibition. Did it stop people from drinking? No. They just hid it and did so illegally. The same is true with gambling.
Well, desperate times call for desperate measures.
Recently, Delaware’s governor and a New Jersey state senator proposed that their states begin to allow gambling on sports. Delaware wants to start as soon as this fall, by allowing parlays bets on football games.
Delaware would also sell some form of sports lottery tickets. New Jersey’s proposal is more along the lines of turning the Garden State eventually into Vegas East.
Well, it’s about time!
Let me get this straight. I can go to the Greyhound Track in Bonita Springs and bet on dogs or horses running anywhere in the U.S., but I can’t legally bet on the NFL anywhere other than Nevada?
Did Nevada bribe the rest of America or are they just laughing at our stupidity all these years?
We’re not talking legalizing marijuana or prostitution (I’ll leave that cause to Bill Maher). I’m talking being able to drive a few minutes to a local betting parlor and taking T.O. and the Bills, hosting the Jets, laying 3 1/2 points.
They bet everything that moves in Great Britain. You may have heard of them? Our greatest ally. Home to London and the 2012 Olympics.
Let’s stop the charade. Keeping it illegal is not stopping one person from placing a bet. Not one. Meanwhile, Costa Rica and a few offshore companies are laughing all the way to the bank.
While we bail some of ours out.
Those that don’t want to gamble, won’t. Same as those that don’t want to drink or smoke, won’t drink or smoke.
Legalize gambling on sports and tax the heck out of it.
Don’t give me your moral outrage and the eventual decay of Western civilization as we know it argument. Reality check: What kills more people in America? Tobacco, alcohol or gambling?
Answer: Definitely not gambling. So what have we done about tobacco and alcohol? Legalized it and taxed the heck out of it.

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David Moulton is co-host of “Miller and Moulton in the Afternoon.” The radio show now airs weekdays 2-7 p.m. on WWCN/AM 770 ESPN. His columns appear every Sunday, Wednesday and Friday.


Other states move to legalize Betting Sports