Today kicks off March Madness, NCAA’s college basketball tournament — one of the biggest sporting events of the year. And with it comes lots of sports betting, which is now legal across much of the US. WUWM’s Jimmy Gutierrez asked Jason Kido Lopez, assistant professor at UW-Madison Media and Cultural studies, what
legalized gambling means for Wisconsin.
"The tricky part about this is that the federal legalization of sports betting just meant that every state gets to decide whether and how to allow sports betting," Lopez says.
In 2018, the US Supreme Court ruled the federal ban on sports betting unconstitutional. Since then, 38 states have legalized some form of sports betting. In Wisconsin, it's only available on tribal lands and online gambling apps.
Sports betting & college basketball
Lopez says sports gambling has played an important role in the history of college basketball.
"One of the reasons why the NCAA tournament is more popular than the NIT, that story has to do with gambling," he says.
The National Invitational Tournament, or NIT, got its start with just six teams in 1938 — with the NCAA tournament following close behind in 1939. Originally, the NIT was considered the more prestigious of the two, Lopez says. But that changed in 1951, when gambling scandals rocked the NIT and shifted public perception.
"The NCAA used this problem with the NIT to try to advertise itself as a clean, end-of-the-year tournament," he says.
Wisconsin Policy Forum report on sports betting in Wisconsin
Mark Sommerhauser is the communications director with the Wisconsin Policy Forum, and a lead author on a new report on the impacts of sports betting across the state. He explains the relationship between state government and Wisconsin's Native American tribes.
"So these tribes — in exchange for being given the exclusive right to conduct these games of chance, they do make these payments to the state — which are used for all kinds of different things," he says.
Last year, Potowatomi Casino won more than $400 million from gamblers — giving $66 million back to the state in taxes. Sommerhauser says the profits from casino also go towards services for tribal members.
The report also explored societal impacts of sports betting. Despite state regulations on sports betting, Sommerhauser says that legalization has brought some negative impacts — especially among lower income households.
"We do cite in the report one paper in particular that found — in states that legalized online betting — increased rates of bankruptcy, increased rates of debt sent to collections, debt consolidation loans, auto loan delinquency," he says.
Sports betting is big business
Today, betting ads are ubiquitous in sports media. If you watch local sports teams like the Milwaukee Bucks, you've noticed that the home broadcasting stations is run by online sportsbook app FanDuel. And sports leagues like the NFL are pushing gambling services to their fans.
Jason Kido Lopez says this is all part of the plan.
"Gambling and fantasy and March Madness brackets are really good for business because they deepen engagement and they encourage engagement with the sports products they're offering," he says. "American sports leagues are in the is kind of double bind of wanting to keep some distance from gaming and gambling, but they also encourage it so people will get into their sports more."
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