The University of Iowa has a legal betting system where you can bet on elections. Why can't someone set up an exchange to bet on sports? Everyone pays a fee for site maintenance, and there is no vig. You can only bet against people that are willing to take the other side of your bet. Why wouldn't this work? It's legal to bet against other people, the only thing that makes booking illegal is the vig. Thoughts?
It's already being done. The guys at intrade have come up with one for sports and I believe it's based in the states now instead of Ireland. it's pretty new though, and still in beta.
http://tradesports.com/
http://tradesports.com/
It's still illegal to gamble I believe, but they've found a loophole where you pay out like a contest. You pay a fee to be part of the club instead of vig or something like that. Not exactly sure how it all works, but it's legal, and being able to see a money market on sporting events will be nice.
I don't think it's illegal to gamble in most states, and if it is, there is no worry because nobody is gonna be prosecuted for "gambling." The wire act was strictly to bust bookies who charge vig to take bets. I'm no lawyer, but it would seem to me that two people betting each other on the 49ers -5.5/Packers +5.5 would be fine. Fuck it's let's start one and find out!
It's the way it's set up, they probably payout in away that makes it like a contest like fantasy sports does. Intrade used to do the same thing and they got shut down by the Feds, that's why they're restructuring the payouts, and reopening as tradesports.
The legality would be very much debated.
If you are making no money from operating an exchange, you would have a pretty good argument against being in the business, but then again if you are making no money why would you want to take the risk?
You have other issues to worry about like promoting gambling, gambling across state lines, etc. If you became a big deal the government could find ways to cause you problems most likely.
In any case, there are possibly ways to try to do this in a legal fashion. The upside would be if online sportsbetting becomes legal you would have a great database of players and be a leader when that happens. The downside is if you were at all successful, the DOJ would likely arrest you or at least challenge the legality of your website and who wants to spend millions in legal bills on a site that isn't taking in revenue?
I'm no lawyer but I just can't see this being successful and not seeing some kind of problem.
If you are making no money from operating an exchange, you would have a pretty good argument against being in the business, but then again if you are making no money why would you want to take the risk?
You have other issues to worry about like promoting gambling, gambling across state lines, etc. If you became a big deal the government could find ways to cause you problems most likely.
In any case, there are possibly ways to try to do this in a legal fashion. The upside would be if online sportsbetting becomes legal you would have a great database of players and be a leader when that happens. The downside is if you were at all successful, the DOJ would likely arrest you or at least challenge the legality of your website and who wants to spend millions in legal bills on a site that isn't taking in revenue?
I'm no lawyer but I just can't see this being successful and not seeing some kind of problem.
