In the United States, a sportsbook or a race and sports book (sometimes abbreviated as book) is a place where a

gambler Gambling (also known as betting or gaming) is the wagering of something of value ("the stakes") on a random event with the intent of winning something else of value, where instances of strategy are discounted. Gambling thus requires three elem ...

can wager on various

sports Sport pertains to any form of competitive physical activity or game that aims to use, maintain, or improve physical ability and skills while providing enjoyment to participants and, in some cases, entertainment to spectators. Sports can, ...

competitions, including

golf Golf is a club-and-ball sport in which players use various clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a course in as few strokes as possible. Golf, unlike most ball games, cannot and does not use a standardized playing area, and coping wi ...

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly ...

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appr ...

baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding t ...

ice hockey Ice hockey (or simply hockey) is a team sport played on ice skates, usually on an ice skating rink with lines and markings specific to the sport. It belongs to a family of sports called hockey. In ice hockey, two opposing teams use ice ...

soccer Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players who primarily use their feet to propel the ball around a rectangular field called a pitch. The objective of the game is ...

horse racing Horse racing is an equestrian performance sport, typically involving two or more horses ridden by jockeys (or sometimes driven without riders) over a set distance for competition. It is one of the most ancient of all sports, as its basic pr ...

greyhound racing Greyhound racing is an organized, competitive sport in which greyhounds are raced around a track. There are two forms of greyhound racing, track racing (normally around an oval track) and coursing; the latter is now banned in most countries. Tr ...

boxing Boxing (also known as "Western boxing" or "pugilism") is a combat sport in which two people, usually wearing protective gloves and other protective equipment such as hand wraps and mouthguards, throw punches at each other for a predetermined ...

, and

mixed martial arts Mixed martial arts (MMA), sometimes referred to as cage fighting, no holds barred (NHB), and ultimate fighting, and originally referred to as Vale Tudo is a full-contact combat sport based on striking, grappling and ground fighting, incor ...

. The method of betting varies with the sport and the type of game. In the US, the

Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act of 1992 The Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act of 1992 (), also known as PASPA or the Bradley Act, was a law, judicially-overturned in 2018, that was meant to define the legal status of sports betting throughout the United States. This act ...

allowed only Nevada, Oregon, Montana, and Delaware to legally wager on sports other than horse racing, greyhound racing, and

jai alai Jai alai (: ) is a sport involving bouncing a ball off a walled-in space by accelerating it to high speeds with a hand-held wicker ''cesta''. It is a variation of Basque pelota. The term ''jai alai'', coined by Serafin Baroja in 1875, is also oft ...

; the law was ruled unconstitutional on May 14, 2018, freeing states to legalize sports betting at their discretion. Winning bets are paid when the event finishes, or if not finished, when played long enough to become official; otherwise all bets are returned. This policy can cause some confusion since there can be a difference between what the sportsbook considers official and what the sports league consider official. Customers should carefully read the sportsbook rules before placing their bets. The betting volume at sportsbooks varies throughout the year. Bettors have more interest in certain types of sports and increase the money wagered when those sports are in season. Major sporting events that do not follow a specific schedule, like boxing, can create peaks of activity for the sportsbooks.

Nevada

Most of the United States sportsbooks are located in Nevada. In 1949, Nevada allowed bookmakers to accept bets on

and

professional sports In professional sports, as opposed to amateur sports, participants receive payment for their performance. Professionalism in sport has come to the fore through a combination of developments. Mass media and increased leisure have brought l ...

. The first Nevada sportsbooks were called Turf Clubs. They were independent from the casinos and had an informal agreement with the hotels that they would stay out of the casino business as long as the hotels stayed out of the sportsbook business. The sportsbooks had to pay a 10 percent tax so they charged a high

vigorish Vigorish (also known as ''juice'', ''under-juice'', the ''cut'', the ''take'', the ''margin'', the ''house edge'' or simply the ''vig'') is the fee charged by a bookmaker (or ''bookie'') for accepting a gambler's wager. In American English, it can ...

to gamblers, but they still brought enough business to make a profit. In 1974 the tax was lowered to 2 percent, in 1983 to 0.25 percent, and in 1975 Frank Rosenthal, who ran the

Stardust Casino The Stardust Resort and Casino was a casino resort located on along the Las Vegas Strip in Winchester, Nevada. The Stardust was conceived by Tony Cornero, and construction began in 1954. Cornero died in 1955, and the project was taken over by his ...

, convinced legislators to allow sportsbooks in the casinos, and soon nearly all of the casinos added them. The turf clubs were no longer able to compete and eventually all closed. Nevada casino sportsbooks generally feature betting windows, big screen televisions, interactive betting stations, odds boards (usually computerized), papers with different odds for the day, and places to sit and watch games and races. Some casinos use third-party operators for their sportsbooks, such as

Cantor Gaming Cantor Fitzgerald, L.P. is an American financial services firm that was founded in 1945. It specializes in institutional equity, fixed income sales and trading, and serving the middle market with investment banking services, prime brokerage, an ...

Leroy's Leroy's Horse & Sports Place, also known as Leroy's Race and Sport Book or simply Leroy's, was an operator of sports books in Nevada. As of 2012, it had 72 race and sports books and kiosks. It was based in Las Vegas. Leroy's parent company, Americ ...

, Lucky's, and

Club Cal Neva Club Cal Neva is a casino and former hotel located in Downtown Reno, Nevada. The casino has 849 slot machines, 41 table games, 3 poker tables and a race and sports book. History Club Cal Neva is one of the most historic casinos in Northern Ne ...

. In 2011, British bookmaker William Hill agreed to buy the Leroy's, the Lucky's, and the Cal Neva chains, which would give it control of 115 of the state's 183 books. The

Super Bowl The Super Bowl is the annual final playoff game of the National Football League (NFL) to determine the league champion. It has served as the final game of every NFL season since 1966, replacing the NFL Championship Game. Since 2022, the gam ...

is the most popular event for the Nevada sportsbooks. They earned $7.2 million on the $99 million wagered on it in

2013 File:2013 Events Collage V2.png, From left, clockwise: Edward Snowden becomes internationally famous for leaking classified NSA wiretapping information; Typhoon Haiyan kills over 6,000 in the Philippines and Southeast Asia; The Dhaka garment fa ...

. Because it attracts many unsophisticated bettors, the books had made money on 21 of the previous 23 Super Bowls, with an average win of $5.5 million over the previous ten years. The most profitable Super Bowl was in

2005 File:2005 Events Collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: Hurricane Katrina in the Gulf of Mexico; the Funeral of Pope John Paul II is held in Vatican City; " Me at the zoo", the first video ever to be uploaded to YouTube; Eris was discover ...

, when the

Philadelphia Eagles The Philadelphia Eagles are a professional American football team based in Philadelphia. The Eagles compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) East division. The team play ...

covered the

spread Spread may refer to: Places * Spread, West Virginia Arts, entertainment, and media * ''Spread'' (film), a 2009 film. * ''$pread'', a quarterly magazine by and for sex workers * "Spread", a song by OutKast from their 2003 album ''Speakerboxxx/T ...

against the favored

New England Patriots The New England Patriots are a professional American football team based in the Greater Boston area. They compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's American Football Conference (AFC) AFC East, East divisio ...

, earning the books $15.4 million. The two losses were in

1995 File:1995 Events Collage V2.png, From left, clockwise: O.J. Simpson is acquitted of the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman from the year prior in "The Trial of the Century" in the United States; The Great Hanshin earthquake str ...

—when the

San Francisco 49ers The San Francisco 49ers (also written as the San Francisco Forty-Niners) are a professional American football team based in the San Francisco Bay Area. The 49ers compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the league's Nationa ...

defeated the

San Diego Chargers The San Diego Chargers were a professional American football team that played in San Diego from 1961 until the end of the 2016 season, before relocating to Los Angeles, where the franchise had played its inaugural 1960 season. The team is now ...

—and

2008 File:2008 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Lehman Brothers went bankrupt following the Subprime mortgage crisis; Cyclone Nargis killed more than 138,000 in Myanmar; A scene from the opening ceremony of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing; ...

—when the favored Patriots lost to the

New York Giants The New York Giants are a professional American football team based in the New York metropolitan area. The Giants compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) East divisio ...

, costing the books $2.5 million.

Delaware

In 2009, a bill passed to allow betting on almost every sport. That year, the NFL, MLB, NHL, NBA, and NCAA filed a lawsuit against the state of

Delaware Delaware ( ) is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States, bordering Maryland to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and New Jersey and the Atlantic Ocean to its east. The state takes its name from the adjacent ...

, claiming their sports books were violating federal law. The

US Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point of ...

ruled that the law partially violated the federal law, and Delaware was only allowed to offer parlays on NFL games. Delaware's three racetrack casinos— Dover Downs,

Harrington Raceway & Casino Harrington Raceway & Casino is a harness racing track and casino (a " racino") located on the fairgrounds of the Delaware State Fair, just south of Harrington, Delaware, south of Dover. The casino, formerly known as Midway Slots, has over 1,800 s ...

, and

Delaware Park Racetrack Delaware Park (also known as ''DelPark'') is an American Thoroughbred horse racing track, casino, and golf course in Stanton, Delaware. It is located just outside the city of Wilmington, and about 30 miles from Philadelphia. Thoroughbred racing ...

—have sports books. Each sportsbook has multiple televisions, large tote boards and stations for people to wager. During the

2011 NFL season The 2011 NFL season was the 92nd regular season of the National Football League and the 46th of the Super Bowl era. It began on Thursday, September 8, 2011, with the Super Bowl XLV champion Green Bay defeating the Super Bowl XLIV champio ...

, the three sports books generated $4.4 million in revenue for the state. On June 5, 2018, the casino sportsbooks in Delaware expanded sports betting to single-game and championship wagers on professional and college sports (excluding Delaware college teams) including football, baseball, basketball, hockey, soccer, boxing/MMA, golf, and auto racing.

References

{{Reflist Sports betting

Nevada

Delaware

See also

References