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Comment by gadders | Hacker News Reader

You know sports betting has existed in other counties for dozens of years, right?

All these people making predictions like this is some bold leap into the unknown but it's been legal in the UK since the 1960s.

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The UK hath no fury like a forbidden US market unleashed.

Sure, but I would argue that the current sports books are qualitatively different and make it significantly easier to get away with cheating. In the UK in the 1960s, punters could mainly only bet on whether a team would win or beat the spread. There were some match fixing scandals but it was relatively easier to detect inauthentic results or suspicious betting patterns. Now it's possible to bet on a zillion different things constantly throughout each game, like whether a football team will get a first down on the next play. If a player was paid off to gain only 9 yards instead of 10 that's much harder to a detect.

The UK has evolved a sophisticated detection and deterrent system: https://www.gamblingcommission.gov.uk/licensees-and-business...

UK regulations are also more coherent, centralised, and strict than the patchwork US model.

The question is whether the US has the gumption and collaborative power to put something similar in place before the damage is done.

Yeah. There were a few betfair scandals early on but it's not led to the death of sport.

Also been legal in Vegas for decades, including the days of "Lefty" Rosenthal and the Stardust Hotel when the mob was deeply entrenched there.

I bet somebody could make a movie about this.

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