That would be nice, but you miss my point. There won't be anything near "open" competition. That is a simple fact of states trying to protect their lottery and casino revenues. In fact since the early 90s when all the riverboat states opened up, most states have decided that keeping their lottery in control of slot machines is the way to go. If there was a way for sports betting to get through, the same exact thing is certain to happen, of that I have no doubt. The lottery vendors would be crying foul if it wasn't that way, they make machines and systems for sports lotteries around the world and would be telling them about how much money they could make. Sports lotteries are highly profitable for the jurisdiction, they usually have holds of 20-30%, a level at which sports betting is completely unprofitable for anyone to bet seriously. All that would come of it would be parlay cards of all varieties with just horrible odds. If you want an idea of how bad the odds are just look at some Canadian lottery website, just about every province has a sports related lottery with such gems like "a basketball game that ends with a team winning by 5 or less points is a tie" so if you picked a team they would essentially have to win by 6. So you have three choices on each game and a huge takeout related to every one of them. That is what legalization would bring and I tell you now it will really screw us because the squares will go for it, its like playing a slot machine taking an 8 team parlay.