What was the key to their success?ĭaily fantasy sports really served as a test run for the U.S.
A few companies capitalized right out of the gate because they were already dominating the world of online fantasy sports. During this time, we also saw the emergence of Nevada and Las Vegas, and there’s obviously some organized crime overlap there.Ī version of the New Jersey fight went all the way to the Supreme Court, and in May 2018, sports betting became legal. It really shone a light on what organized crime does in the United States, and one of the things to come out of that was that sports betting was one of their primary moneymaking operations. Back in the 1950s, there was the Kefauver Committee, which was a famous 13-, 14-city tour by Senator Estes Kefauver, and he went around and he interviewed a number of organized crime figures. In the U.S., we’ve gone through different waves of how we view gambling, both sports betting and gambling more broadly.Īfter World War II, there were big concerns about gambling and its connection to organized crime. So, sports and gambling have always been connected. Sports betting and sports are probably a little bit of chicken-egg: What came first? We can look back to ancient Greece-there was betting back then. Obviously, sports betting is not a new thing.
