Gambling on sporting events at both the amateur and professional levels is common throughout the United States. Sports leagues ranging from the National Collegiate Athletic association (NCAA) to the National Football League (NFL), the National Basketball Association (NBA),and Major League Baseball (MLB) have all gone on record as being opposed to any efforts to extend gambling opportunities which would impact on their games (Feinstein 88). The leagues theorize that by legalizing gambling on sports, states might make a great deal of needed money to support a variety of important programs, but the leagues themselves will be damaged because this would introduce new opportunities or reasons for unethical and illegal behavior such as point shaving and game fixing.
Feinstein (88) notes that in 1992, Congress passed legislation banning states from allowing sports betting wile grandfathering in four states that already allowed it: Nevada, Oregon, Delaware, and Montana. Until recently, only Nevada acted to create legal sports betting books. Recently, Delaware decided that it would take advantage of its opportunity to make money on legal sports gambling, leading the NFL, the NBA, the NCAA, MLB, and the National Hockey League (NHL)) to seek an injunction that would prevent the launch of such a program. The argument advanced by the sports leagues is that Delaware's move will further create opportunities for illegal activity that will damage all of the sporting associations and to emphasize its point, the NCAA has threatened not to hold any championship events in Delaware if the legislation holds up (Feinstein 88).
In August 2008, a federal appeals court ruled against the state of Delaware and in favor of the sports leagues stating that Delaware's plans violated federal law (Farrell, A1). The three judge panel from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit ruled in favor of the professional leagues while judging the case ...