INTRODUCTION

The sports betting market in the USA is representative of the ambiguous situation of sports betting regulation at world level. Although the activity has long been forbidden by federal law (except, notably, in Nevada), it is estimated that between $50 billion and $400 billion is bet illegally with bookies and offshore websites (Miller 2015). Recent police investigations have enabled us to understand the high volume and reach of such illegal betting networks. Meanwhile, the evolution of betting products (in particular, mobile betting and the popularity of fantasy sports) is forcing authorities to further scrutinize the effectiveness of the prohibitory regime on sports betting. A number of states are officially contesting the federal ban on betting, including New Jersey, West Virginia, Mississippi, Arizona, Louisiana and Wisconsin. Sports representatives, such as the NBA commissioner in November 2014 (Silver 2014), are also progressively advocating an opening up of betting regulation. This push for legalization has already swept across the European Union, where national regulatory authorities chose to open up the activity to collect much-desired tax revenues and supervise, if not control, a lucrative market. Hence, although prohibition (or state monopoly) remains the norm at world level, the EU stands as an exception and mostly accepts non-prescriptive, if not permissive, regulatory regimes for betting. Czech Republic, the Netherlands and Sweden are among the latest countries that are considering adopting, or have adopted, a liberal approach to open up the market.

The ambiguity of betting and gaming’s legal status comes from the fact that the regulation of the activity is limited to the national level, although the Internet gave the activity a worldwide dimension. Whether states want to prohibit or constrain it, the market exists de facto. Most of the states enforce a prohibition regime, and, among the countries who have legalized the activity, many chose to implement a monopolistic regime (China, for example) or to severely limit the number of licences granted (France and Belgium, for example). But, in the meantime, some jurisdictions preferred an open regime and implicitly let operators target every potential consumer in the world.