Here's A Breakdown On Sports Gambling Legislation By State

ACROSS AMERICA — With baseball closing in on the playoffs, the NFL season kicking off this weekend and the NBA season just around the corner, it's the perfect time to talk about the state of sports gambling in the United States.

Since the U.S. Supreme Court struct down the federal ban on betting on sports games in May of 2018, 13 states across the nation now have legalized sports betting industries.

"Congress can regulate sports gambling directly, but if it elects not to do so, each State is free to act on its own," the court wrote in its opinion. "Our job is to interpret the law Congress has enacted and decide whether it is consistent with the Constitution."

The sports blogging network SB Nation, has an interactive map of the United States that tracks all the news and legislation surrounded sports gambling. The map categorizes each state's level of sports gambling on one of four levels: legal, bill passed, bill introduced, or no bill.

The U.S. states with legalized sports gambling systems in places are:

• Nevada
• New Jersey
• Delaware
• Mississippi
• West Virginia
• Pennsylvania
• Rhode Island
• New York
• Iowa
• Indiana

Six more states look particularly close to having legal sports betting, as Illinois, Maine, Montana, New Hampshire, North Carolina, and Tennessee all put bills on file in the past few months that will likely legalize the practice in the coming months.

Two state legislatures introduced Bill ACA 16 in California, which would amend the Constitution to allow for the regulation of sports betting in 2020. The sports gambling situation in Texas isn't as promising though, as a bill introduced on Feb. 1, 2019, which would authorize mobile and online sports wagering, has been put on hold by the state GOP platform.

The U.S. states with no legislation at all on legalizing sports betting are:

• Idaho
• Utah
• Wyoming
• North Dakota
• Nebraska
• Wisconsin
• Florida