Kathleen S. Hardway, Desirée F. Moore, Jason C. Rose, and Laura K. Grant publish “Bet the Company: Are Sports Gambling Class Actions the Next Tobacco?” in the spring issue of Legal Issues in Sports Betting. The following is an excerpt:
In 2018, the Supreme Court struck down a decades-long federal ban on sports betting in Murphy v. Nat’l Collegiate Athletic Assoc. Prior to Murphy, anyone seeking to place a bet on a sporting event generally had to live in or travel to Nevada. Since 2018, nearly 40 states and the District of Columbia have allowed sports betting in some form, with around 30 states allowing sports betting on a mobile device. A 2024 survey found that 1 in 5 Americans now have a sports betting account, with over 90% using a sports betting app on their phone.
Sports betting has become a billion-dollar industry since 2018, with companies bringing in an estimated $14 billion in profits in 2024, and states collecting around $2.5 billion in taxes. There are numerous sports betting apps available to consumers, and the landscape has shifted so much that celebrity endorsements and advertisements for the apps now run frequently during televised sporting events.