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Should Sports Gambling Be Illegal

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“Maybe I will win this time. He has to score this game! Maybe he will get hurt and I will win…” These are just a few things that people say when betting on players and different sports teams. Gambling is usually a game of luck, but in sports gambling there is often some skill involved. The problem with “skillful gambling” is that it goes straight to the gamblers head because he thinks he knows who will play well and who won’t. In reality no one knows how the player will play; not even the player himself. “The ban on sports betting does exactly what the prohibition did. It makes criminals rich. (James Surowiecki)” Out of the fifty states in the USA, only Delaware and Nevada allow gambling on sporting events. American citizens have lost a combined …show more content…
The two articles polled a collective 1,247 different people and roughly 75% (930 people) of them believe that they should be allowed to gamble on sporting events (Michael Buteau and PBS Newshour) . Even many prominent people such as the commissioner for the NBA, Adam Silver, think that gambling on sports would add to the appeal as well as bring more money into the game. If there are so many different lotteries and scratch offs available for purchase from the government then why can’t Americans use skill and knowledge of the game to bet on how a team or player will perform? Most people believe that gambling should be legal for citizens, but everyone agrees that players, coaches, and referees should never be able to gamble on the game or event they are affiliated with. Betting on sporting games would bring back the competitive interests that some of the sports are lacking in today’s society. Not only will it make people gain a revived interest in sports, it will also bring large tax revenue to the states that allow for the sports gambling to happen. The government should take advantage of this opportunity and legalize sports gambling while taxing the players who take part in

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