Las Vegas Casinos Face Certain Restrictions Unknown in Europe

Author: Neha Agrawal

In many ways, casinos in Las Vegas face stricter rules than their counterparts in Europe or on the internet. They have to deal with certain restrictions which no bookmakers in the UK have to worry about.

One of these restrictions deals with the very popular betting on American college basketball and football. Local law does not allow for any sports books in the city to accept wagers on any games involving colleges that are within the state of Nevada. This includes the local college, UNLV (the University of Las Vegas, Nevada) as well as the University of Nevada, which, like UNLV, has a major program in both sports.

This rule caused problems many years ago, when the UNLV basketball team won the national championship. Since there were no bets allowed on the team in any of their regular season games or in the championship tournament, no casino could take any bets on the final game, which would normally produce a lot of action. Another result of the rule was that the bookmakers paid off all the winning bets on the second place team in the tournament as if they were the winner.

The law forbidding bookmakers in Nevada from taking bets on local teams is also at least partly responsible for keeping all professional teams out of the state. There was talk about moving an NBA basketball team to the city, but the move was not made. Another reason was that the professional sports leagues in America want to disassociate themselves from Las Vegas and all gambling, even though it is a great part of their popularity.

Bookmakers and bettors in the UK are surely surprised about these rules in Las Vegas and throughout Nevada. These issues are no problem in Europe. The idea that a local bookmaker could not take bets on a local team must seem preposterous to anyone in the UK. In fact, there are some British teams which have close connections with bookmakers as participating sponsors with their clubs. The moral issues seem to always be more of a problem in America than they are in Europe, especially when it comes to gambling. It’s only recently that other areas of America besides Nevada have started offering casinos and sports betting of any sort. Even now, a national law passed during the 1990s prohibits sports betting except in those areas that already had them, which basically means only Nevada.

American bettors now have more options for their betting with the internet, though they are still fighting restrictions that are imposed on that form of gambling. Las Vegas remains the center of sports gambling in North America, as long as it doesn’t involve a local team.