Ībout two weeks after sports betting became legal in Ohio on Jan. Georgia, Maine and Kentucky are proposing legislation to make sports betting legal. Currently, 36 states allow legalized sports betting. Sports betting has since grown dramatically. Prior to the ruling, legal sports betting was only allowed in Nevada.
This is largely due to a 2018 Supreme Court ruling that cleared the way for each state to decide whether to permit gambling on sporting events. While people have been betting on March Madness for years, one difference now is that betting on college sports is legal in many states. By at least one estimate, March Madness is the most popular betting target of all. That makes it one of the nation’s most popular sports betting events, alongside contests such as the Kentucky Derby and the Super Bowl. The American Gaming Association estimates that in 2022, 45 million people - or more than 17% of American adults - planned to wager $3.1 billion on the NCAA tournament. When March Madness begins on Ma, it’s a sure bet that millions of Americans will be making wagers on the annual college basketball tournament.
