With the federal ban on sports gambling lifted, more and more states are working on legislation to legalize it locally and open their arms to bettors in their area who want to put their hard-earned money on the line.
The first state to join Nevada in legalizing sports gambling was New Jersey, unsurprising given that they were the ones filing suit to have the federal ban lifted. The state quickly had laws in place to open sportsbooks and have them regulated by the state’s gaming commission, and others like Mississippi have followed suit.
One of the ongoing battles at the state level is between the major sports leagues and state legislatures in trying to get some piece of the pie, or at the least have some influence in what is allowed. To this point, states have given leagues the cold shoulder in their efforts to squeeze some revenue out of sports gambling, and New Jersey has led the charge in this, somewhat out of spite due to the leagues fighting so hard for so long to keep gambling illegal at a federal level.
Most recently, Major League Baseball issued a formal request to those where sports gambling is legal to remove spring training betting from the state-regulated books. Nevada and New Jersey swiftly shut down that request, while Pennsylvania and others are apparently still considering the request, per ESPN’s David Purdum and ABC15 in Arizona.
New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement has declined Major League Baseball's request to prohibit betting on Spring Training games at the state's regulated sportsbooks.
— David Payne Purdum (@DavidPurdum) March 6, 2019
The request insisted that exhibition games were more likely to be “vulnerable to manipulation” given the larger number of players involved, as well as the fact that many of them are minor leaguers who don’t make much money — which is a separate issue that MLB refuses to address adequately.
It’s unsurprising that sportsbooks would deny such a request as, while not a spectacularly popular item, spring training bets are still a money-making venture for them, and they are fully comfortable with their procedures for watching out for any chicanery in the form of game-fixing.
