Francis Ouimet’s triumph as an unpaid amateur golfer in the 1913 U.S. Open was described and depicted as “The Greatest Game Ever Played.”
Ouimet played for pride, not prize money. So much so that, as the legend goes, a hat was passed around to collect money to tip his 10-year-old caddy.
The New York Times reported – on its front page, no less – that “[w]hen Ouimet holed his final stroke on the home green of the Country Club this afternoon the 8,000 persons who had tramped through the heavy mist and dripping grass behind the trio of players for almost three hours realized what the victory meant to American golf, and the scenes of elation which followed were pardonable under the circumstances.”
Three paragraphs later, and still on the front page, the Times reported that pre-tournament, three other, more established and professional golfers had been two-to-one favorites to win over the rest of the field.
“Even after Ouimet had tied with his two opponents of to-day (sic), wagers were laid at 5 to 4 that one of the two English men would defeat him,” the paper of record noted.
So, did a little gambling talk tarnish Ouimet’s win? Eh, not quite.
“The scenes of jubilation on the home green after the match had been won were, therefore, but natural expressions of pride and pleasure at Ouimet's success in retaining a championship for America which was considered earlier in the week destined to cross the Atlantic,” the Times reported.
The Greatest Bet Ever Made?
Is it a stretch to say, then, that bookies and bettors made one of the greatest sports moments of all time just a wee bit greater by giving us an idea of just how unexpected it would be for Ouimet to win that event? And how many of the 8,000 who trailed Ouimet around the course had a little something riding on the outcome?
A few, I’d wager. In fact, I’d argue that behind every great sports moment is someone sweating the outcome. ‘Twas ever thus.
People have been betting on sports forever, with or without authorization from their local lawmakers. According to the Quebec-based Mohawk Council of Kahnawà:ke, there is an account of a lacrosse game played between the Senecas and Mohawks in the 18th century which “estimated that 2,000 people attended to watch, and that significant betting took place.”
However, since the U.S. Supreme Court paved the way in 2018 for state lawmakers to authorize sports wagering, the betting has exploded. And, of late, the concerns and complaints about all that wagering are racing to catch up, especially when it comes to advertising, integrity, and addiction.
One of the more difficult to gauge concerns has to do with what I would characterize as a general cheapening or tarnishing of sports themselves. We used to enjoy the spectacle, the majesty, etc., but now all we care about are parlays.
“As sports betting has spread, the actual games and cheering for your team have become less important for many individuals who are more focused on the point spread or player props,” U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin said during a Judiciary Committee hearing in December.
Ben Simmons and Cam Johnson speak on sports betting and how it’s ruining games. #Netsworld
— NetsKingdom 👑🗽 (@NetsKingdomAJ) January 24, 2025
🎥 @OldManAndThree pic.twitter.com/XPecRSlK0h
It’s not just Durbin voicing this kind of concern. A survey done by Deloitte in 2023 found 59% of non-bettors were worried about the long-term impacts of sports betting on the game.
Another example would be Indiana Pacers star Tyrese Haliburton saying he sometimes feels like a "prop," or Brooklyn Nets guard Ben Simmons saying sports betting is wrecking games, with fans lacking appreciation of what players are trying to do, which is just win, baby.
And, as is customary, here is a sampling of headlines from last year: "Gambling Is Ruining Sports," "Legalizing Sports Gambling Was a Huge Mistake," "Sports gambling should have stayed in Las Vegas."
So there is, at the very least, a general sense among some that sports betting is degrading the game. You can’t just dismiss that, especially since losing bets can leave a sour taste in your mouth. Indeed, in 2021, three professors from Xavier University found that “when fans lose a bet, positive emotions and subsequent fan engagement decrease.”
Bet first, cheer later (maybe)
Lately, though, concerns about a bet-first mentality among fans feels like it is reaching something of an inflection point, supercharged by the internet, legalization, and commercialization.
Anyone can watch a game and bet it from anywhere, with or without the say of regulators and politicians. What’s more, the seemingly endless menu of betting markets has made it possible to wager on minutiae or outcomes that have nothing to do with the final score. Athletes get hounded over stats they don’t track or particularly care about, but bettors do. Non-betting fans in the stands hear the same gripes.
However, if betting ruins sports, it’s been ruining it for a long time. As reporting on one of the purest sporting moments in history suggests, people have always cared more for their bets than the moment.
Still, public polling suggests fans haven’t totally lost their fandom. Regulators and lawmakers also have the power to tinker and make changes to the rules in and around wagering. Some changes have already (arguably) improved the industry. Also, if betting is only beginning to ruin sports now, why are so many people watching?
The story keeps getting better!
— ESPN PR (@ESPNPR) January 22, 2025
ESPN's final audience for @HoustonTexans-@Chiefs comes in at nearly 34 million viewers👏
More on ESPN's record-breaking audience: https://t.co/0UbFNOVhhM https://t.co/EnDktv4JZw pic.twitter.com/u4ypYNoIY8
According to ESPN, the Chiefs-Texans playoff game – plagued by questionable penalties – was the company’s most-watched NFL game of all-time, with around 34 million viewers. If betting is ruining football, a lot of people are still tuning in to watch a busted product.
Furthermore, polling firm Ipsos reported last May that 68% of Americans considered themselves a fan of at least one sport, which was unchanged from 2023. Also unchanged was that just shy of half of all those surveyed reported they had played a sport the previous year.
Meanwhile, the percentage of Americans who reported placing an official bet on a live sporting event declined slightly compared to the previous year, falling to 7% from 8% for online wagering and to 3% from 4% for brick-and-mortar betting.
Put differently, fandom and wagering participation are holding more or less steady, even as the amount of betting continues to shoot up. In New York alone, nearly $2.3 billion was bet using mobile sportsbooks in December, up from around $2 billion in Deccember 2023.
Football is America's pastime, cornhole and bowling are popular, and that so-called pickleball craze may not have been so crazy after all. Here's Ipsos' new research on what sports fandom looks like in the U.S. today https://t.co/halj8mLXbC pic.twitter.com/7ZRx5WW0j1
— Ipsos US (@ipsosus) February 23, 2023
So, while Sen. Durbin may be correct that “many individuals” are more concerned about bets than ballgames, it’s probably not true for most people.
Take the Super Bowl, the granddaddy of sports betting events. Ipsos found in December that just 3% of those it surveyed said their primary reason for watching the Big Game is sports betting. Another 42% told Ipsos they watch for the game itself, 14% said they were there for the halftime show, and 11% said they would watch for the commercials.
In other words, the Ipsos study suggests that far more people will be watching the game to just watch the game instead of watching because they are gambling. It also looks like there are far more people who care about Budweiser Super Bowl ads than they do same-game parlays hawked by the Mannings.
A little MACtion
This is the Super Bowl, though. People are going to watch it no matter what.
Now, if you surveyed the audience of a Tuesday night MAC football game, the percentage of viewers more interested in betting may skew higher. The most casual of viewers will tune into Buffalo-Kansas City, but not Buffalo-Kent State.
Arguably, though, sports betting has helped turn a few heads toward smaller and startup leagues, the MAC included. In some cases, the attention from bettors is being actively sought. For example, TGL, the new sim-golf league backed by Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy, had FanDuel as an official partner before a single ball had been struck.
The Clark effect
Moreover, the day after Durbin’s remarks at the Senate committee hearing, the University of Iowa Athletics Department announced plans to retire the No. 22 jersey of women’s college basketball legend Caitlin Clark. The school called it “a celebration of legacy, achievement and undeniable impact.”
Clark was at that point playing for the WNBA’s Indiana Fever, and her impact was already felt at the professional level as well. The women’s basketball league reported in September that it had its most-watched regular season in 24 years and its highest attendance in 22 years.
“The Fever’s total home attendance of 340,715 fans was a single-season record for a WNBA team, surpassing the previous home attendance record of 250,565 set by New York in 2001 in 16 games,” the league said in a press release.
The Clark effect was rippling through the betting markets as well. BetMGM, for example, reported that the amount of wagering on the WNBA’s 2024 season was a 113% increase over the previous year. The betting on Clark’s player props was 14% of the total handle for all WNBA player props, the bookmaker said.
“Women’s basketball is blowing up, and people seem to be excited about women’s sports in general,” said Hannah Luther, a sports trader at BetMGM, in October. “There was incredible momentum for the WNBA coming off a record-breaking women’s college basketball tournament in terms of bets and viewership led by interest in Indiana Fever superstar Caitlin Clark.”
It’s possible more WNBA fans became WNBA bettors, or vice versa. It’s also possible some preexisting WNBA fans have been turned off by betting. And it’s possible as well that the two segments just really appreciate Clark’s skills and upped their interest in the game overall, with no overlap between bettor and fan. But if you’re wondering if sports betting has ruined the WNBA, it doesn’t look like it.
“In general, sports bettors tend to be more active fans across the board,” Deloitte found in 2023. “Of those we surveyed, bettors are more likely to have attended a game in person, bought sports merchandise, paid for a streaming video service to watch sports, and participated in fantasy sports over the past 12 months. What drives this engagement? Eighty percent of sports bettors agree that betting increases the entertainment value of live sports.”
Maybe that's a bit keen, but one expert in the "psychology of sport fandom" has said research suggests the legalization of betting would not have a huge impact on lovers of the game.
"It’s not going to change a lot of individuals," Murray State University professor Dr. Daniel Wann said during an episode of the American Psychological Association's podcast last April. "The people that don’t follow sport, that could not care less about sport, they’re not going to suddenly start following sport because you can bet. And the people that live for sport, they’re not going to stop following sport because they can bet—they just might slightly consume some games that they wouldn’t otherwise have watched."
Still, people are worried now that betting is widely legal. And they are worried for different and valid reasons: annoying and seemingly omnipresent ads, match-fixing scandals (we'll talk about that more later this week), abuse from and pestering by bettors, fears of addiction, and the financial fallout that ensues.
While one can argue these concerns stem from gambling, they seem to be less about the act of betting itself and more about all that goes on around it these days. Although Ipsos found 41% of those it surveyed believed sports betting lessens the integrity of games, 61% agreed people should be able to bet on sports if they so choose.
If you can dream it, you can do it
There are tools to address the more egregious problems, and they stem from the legalization and regulation of online sports betting. If something must be changed, it can be. It just requires the desire and focus of those with the power to do so. In some jurisdictions, the interest is there.
Take the New York State Gaming Commission. Just last week, the chairman of that regulator, Brian O’Dwyer, took aim at pre-game segments that are “blurring” the line between talking about the event to be played and what could be considered “promotion” of sports betting. Think Jason Kelce giving out a prop because he was “told” to do so – just one of many episodes that contribute to a “betting is everywhere” feeling.
Kelce’s prop pick didn’t come with a number for a problem gambling hotline, which is what New York requires for sports betting advertisements. And that, to the NYSGC, presents a problem that may need solving.
“There's also a blurring of what can be considered news, information, and what is, in practicality, a call for a wager,” O’Dwyer said. “Either way, we as regulators, our licensees, the operators, everybody in the industry … should be in full compliance with applicable laws and regulations, and we should be looking, frankly, as the commission, to see whether those regulations that we have are adequate to address the problem, or whether new regulations are needed.”
So, could Jason Kelce next be “told” to provide the number for 1-800-GAMBLER, the National Problem Gambling Helpline? If the NYSGC believes he should, he just might, or he might not have props from a sportsbook to suggest at all.
There are similar levers that can be pulled. Again, though, some regulators and lawmakers and law enforcement have done so and will likely continue to do so.
Ohio and West Virginia, for example, have laws on the books now making it explicit that harassment of athletes can get you banned from betting on sports altogether. Ohio also heard the NCAA out about the risks of college player prop betting and banned those wagering markets. Others followed suit, and others still kept those markets of sportsbook menus in the first place.
Professional leagues have the same power now, to reach out to either regulators or their “official” sports betting partners to request that some betting markets remain verboten. Betting markets involving the number of penalty flags in an NFL game have vanished, and, following the Jontay Porter scandal, bookmakers have stopped taking “Under” bets on certain, lesser-used players. While this might drive bettors crazy, it’s there, in part, to keep the fans sane and certain of a game's integrity.
These are tools that didn’t exist before regulation. Yet reducing the frequency and sneakiness of ads could mean less annoyance for non-bettors. Banning bettors for abuse could mean fewer jerks heckling athletes. Both measures may help ease the “betting is everywhere and everything” feeling.
These are also tools that can’t be used for entities based offshore and abroad, which still serve plenty of American bettors. There is a tug-of-war between giving bettors enough to keep them in the regulated market and giving them too much that it creates concern about the games. It comes down to what regulators deem appropriate, but it’s a choice they didn’t always have.
Sports aren't always helping themselves
Let’s also consider the fact that there are other factors that might be “ruining” sports and annoying fans before they even get a chance to be bombarded by sportsbook ads.
Ipsos found 43% of those it surveyed agreed that seeing sports betting ads lessened their enjoyment of the games. However, 80% believed sporting events were too expensive for the average person to attend and 57% said there are too many different platforms required just to watch a game. Can you blame someone for trying to win a little money on a game they may not have any emotional stake in but are paying through the nose to watch anyway?
With that in mind, it’s unreasonable to expect that everyone who watches a game is there just to admire the proceedings. It’s never been the case, as some poor guy who bet against Francis Ouimet could have told you.
You can’t force people to root-root-root for the home team instead of a backdoor cover. It would be like standing behind someone at the Louvre and telling them they should appreciate the brushstrokes on the Mona Lisa rather than giggle at how the eyes follow you around the room. To each their own.
Nevertheless, what sports betting is and all that comes with it now isn’t perfect. While the 2018 PASPA decision is nearing its seventh anniversary, the online sports betting industry is still relatively new. It’s evolving everyday, sometimes at the behest of lawmakers and regulators. It should and will continue to change, and some of those changes will meet with the agreement of fans.
Part I – Negative Effects of Gambling Legalization Overblown
Part II – The Average American Sports Bettor Gambles Infrequently
Part III – Gambling Isn't Ruining the Game
Part IV – Regulation (Wednesday)
Part V – Integrity (Thursday)
Part VI – Wish List (Friday)
