US sports bettors can now wager on whether Usain Bolt will win the 100m dash at next year’s Olympics in Brazil, or if the US men’s basketball team will claim their third straight gold medal.
The Nevada Gaming Commission on Thursday legalized gambling on the Olympics, a practice already allowed in places such as the UK. The proposal, brought by a group of the state’s casinos, was approved at the commission’s monthly meetings in Las Vegas.
William Hill US, Nevada’s largest sports book operator, responded by posting its initial Olympics menu. Bolt, the 100m record holder and winner of the event’s last two gold medals, is minus-200 to win again, meaning a US$200 bet would return US$100 plus the initial stake. The US men’s basketball team are minus-320.
“With more than two out of every three Americans having watched the London Olympics in 2012, the games in Rio have the potential to offer a sizable impact in August of 2016 like we saw last June, across Nevada, with the World Cup,” William Hill US CEO Joe Asher said in a statement.
Momentum has shifted in the US toward a more receptive sports gambling environment. National Basketball Association commissioner Adam Silver has called for legalization of sports gambling, Major League Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred said it is time for a conversation on the issue to begin and daily fantasy sports — legal though in many ways similar to traditional sports gambling — has become a multibillion US dollar industry.
Nevada sports books won a record US$227 million last year, up from US$203 million a year earlier, according to Nevada Gaming Control Board statistics. The total gambling win fell 1.1 percent, to about US$11 billion from US$11.1 billion.
William Hill lists the US as a six-and-a-half-medal favorite over China in the overall golds competition. Next year’s Olympics, to be staged in Rio de Janeiro, will feature golf for the first time since 1904. William Hill is listing 3-1 odds that the gold medalist will be American.
Both the Brazil men’s soccer team and US women’s soccer teams are +250 to win gold, meaning a US$100 bet would return US$250 plus the initial stake.
“We look forward to continually expanding our Olympic menu in the next 18 months leading up to the games,” Asher said.
Olympic bets were legal in Nevada decades ago. As part of the efforts of US Senator John McCain to ban betting on amateur sports, an agreement was struck in 2001 to allow college sports gambling while banning wagers on other amateur sports, such as the Olympics, USA Today said.
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