• Various states across the nation could still see sports betting legalized in 2020 for a 2021 launch.
• The Coronavirus pandemic may help lawmakers warm up to the idea because of the revenue it could bring to economies trying to come back from huge financial losses.

1. States That Have Legalized Sports Gambling
2. States That Will Legalize Sports Gambling

BOSTON – There are a number of states on the path toward legalizing sports betting during their 2020 sessions.

Although the Coronavirus pandemic has caused hearings to be put on pause or has led to shortened schedules for bills to be heard, the topic of gambling on sporting events is still being considered.

In fact, a general thought by many states in consideration is that sports betting becoming legal would be a helpful revenue stream to recoup money lost during the COVID-19 crisis.

States With Bills Still Open In 2020

Vermont is still in discussions on the legal gambling of sporting events. While they have a few bills that would actually legalize the activity, their latest bill, VT SB 59 would open a study on how betting on sports would affect their economy in all aspects of the market. LegalSportsBetting has spoken to Massachusetts, New York, and Ohio legislators for their bills that would make sports betting legal in those respective states.

States That Don't Criminalize Offshore Betting. Even if you don't live in one of the above states which have passed legislation to legalize sports betting, there are still plenty of options to bet on sports while remaining within the confines of the U.S.

Each interview resulted in the goal of getting legal sports betting in the states during the 2020 session. All three understand that the current focus is on how to deal with the damage caused by the Coronavirus but the idea that sports betting could help with the damage is not lost on them.

They have all concluded that once the biggest topics of conversation regarding their states and how to get them reopened have been resolved, budget discussions will be next on the list. This is where bills that center around legal gambling on sporting events would come into play as they could help with bridging deficits only made bigger by COVID-19.

• After Nevada, Delaware was the second state to legalize sports betting, and it did so on June 5th, 2018. Before this, though, residents could still place 3-team parlays on NFL games. The reason was that some sports bets had been allowed before the implementation of PASPA.
• In May 2018, the Supreme Court opened the floodgates. The water continues to rush through. Three more states adopted legalized sports wagering this week, with Maryland, Louisiana, and South Dakota.
• Supreme Court struct down the federal ban on betting on sports games in May of 2018, 13 states across the nation now have legalized sports betting industries.

Kansas, California, and Alaska are the last three states that have bills open this session to make sports betting a legal activity. Of the three, Kansas has had the most headway with two bills. One bill, KS SB 283, has gone farther than the other but Kansas Governor Laura Kelly will not move on it until proper amendments are made, one of which is the inclusion of an iLottery.

California would be a huge money pot should they allow legal sports betting to become regulated in their state as they are home to many of the top major sports leagues. Their bills are still open but they are being hit hard with the Coronavirus and have been locked down for some time.

Alaska Governor Mike Dunleavy would like to make the pastime legal in his state but the bills proposed have not made much progress to date, however, there is still hope for them to do so this year.

Governor Dunleavy initially proposed the idea to help with Alaska’s budget and this was prior to the pandemic so the bills may have an even bigger edge in the aftermath of the global crisis for financial reasons.

Other States Requiring A Public Vote

Maryland, South Dakota, and Virginia are all states that have passed legislation to make sports betting legal pending a public vote in November 2020.

Once the constituents vote on the topic, the results will factor into the 2021 session regarding rules and regulations on the actual industry and what it would offer.

Louisiana is currently doing a similar referendum bill, LA SB 130, that is making its way through the House to become legal. Should it pass by June 1 then residents in each individual parish would also get to vote on making sports betting legal in the Pelican State.

The Final Result

If all were to go right with each state mentioned, that would mean more than a handful of new states in the nation could see legal sports betting in 2021. That would make the tally of more than half of the nation embracing the legal gambling on sports matchups.

At the end of the day, every state knows that their resident’s wager on sports, it’s simply a matter of whether or not they want to offer them a regulated and transparent way of engaging in the activity while having their economies profit as a helpful bonus coming off of a pandemic.

News tags: Alaska California Coronavirus COVID-19 Kansas Legal sports betting Louisiana Maryland Massachusetts New York Ohio South Dakota Vermont Virginia

Christina has been writing for as long as she can remember and does dedicated research on the newly regulated sports betting market. She comes from a family of sports lovers that engage in friendly bets from time to time. During the winter months, you can find Christina baking cookies and beating the entire staff at Mario Kart…the N64 version of course.

While the U.S. presidential election process had not yet produced a clear winner by Wednesday morning, it was a night of decisive victories for the tide of legal sports betting.

Voters said yes to legalizing sports betting in all three states where the question was on the ballot: Louisiana, Maryland, and South Dakota (for the casino-friendly city of Deadwood). In Maryland, 66% of voters approved, and in South Dakota, 59% of voters approved. In Louisiana, where the vote was handled by parish, 55 of 64 parishes approved, including key cities like Baton Rouge and New Orleans.

That brings the grand total to 26 states (plus Washington, D.C.) that have either launched legal sports betting or passed the legislation and are waiting to launch. (Colorado, Nebraska, and Virginia voters also said yes to expanding casino gaming in their states.)

But the newest three states don’t just flip a switch now and turn on the gambling faucet. Lawmakers have to pass companion legislation to determine specific details like tax rates. In all three states, it will likely take until 2021 to fully pass and launch sports betting. (Legalizing mobile sports betting must happen separately; only a handful of the states that have legalized in-person sports betting have also legalized mobile sports betting.)

States That Have Legalized Sports Gambling

DraftKings and FanDuel, the fantasy sports companies now rapidly launching legal sportsbooks across the country, spent heavily on TV and radio advertising in the weeks leading up to Election Day in states where sports betting was on the ballot. In Louisiana, each company spent more than $250,000.

Since 2018, when the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the federal ban on sports betting, gaming companies have been in an arms race to launch sportsbooks in states that have legalized.

And in the past year, a second arms race has unfolded: a battle to rack up betting sponsorships directly with pro sports franchises.

DraftKings has announced sports betting partnerships with the New England Patriots, New York Giants, and Philadelphia Eagles in the NFL, and with the MLB’s Chicago Cubs. (DraftKings went public in April by merging with an already-public SPAC; its shares are up 110% since.) FanDuel has signed betting partnerships with the Denver Broncos and with the Memphis Grizzlies, the company’s first NBA team betting deal. Meanwhile, the Tennessee Titans signed a betting deal with BetMGM.

States That Will Legalize Sports Gambling

“We’re seeing record engagement levels,” DraftKings CEO Jason Robins said on Yahoo Finance in the first week of the 2020 NFL season. “It’s not just because we’ve entered new states—even in the existing states we were in at the start of last NFL season, like New Jersey and West Virginia, we’ve seen enormous year-over-year growth in those markets as well.”

As the tide of legalization continues, expect the frenzied race to sign team betting deals to accelerate. And that trend is sure to change the fabric of U.S. pro sports leagues over time.

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Daniel Roberts is an editor-at-large at Yahoo Finance and closely covers sports business. Follow him on Twitter at @readDanwrite.