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Up until the summer of 2018, offshore sportsbooks were one of the main resources of American gamblers who wanted to place wagers on sporting events, but according to the American Gaming Association (AGA), some of those companies are bad news and should be avoided.
Once the US Supreme Court overturned PASPA in May 2018, individual states have decided whether they want to legalize, regulate, and tax the sports betting market for their residents, and now those illegal offshore sportsbooks are gradually being replaced by legal gambling markets.
But those illicit sportsbook sites still exist and continue to market to US bettors, and the AGA sees this illegal gambling business as a “drain” on the newly generated sports betting tax revenues and as a dirty business that “tarnishes the highly regulated industry’s reputation.”
The AGA warns:
Offshore gaming operators have been the subject of federal prosecutions for illegally targeting American consumers for decades.
However, the original AGA list of illegal sportsbooks contained an error.
As a gaming advocacy group, every year the AGA publishes a list of sportsbooks that should be avoided, including these names:
According to the AGA:
These sites are often vehicles for supporting nefarious activity and organized crime, as well as predatory behavior that may increase the risk of problem gambling for consumers.
One company that was included on the AGA’s original list of illicit sportsbooks was a company called Coral, owned by Entain, the same company that owns BetMGM, a legitimate gambling site that has been included on the AGA’s list of legitimate sportsbooks.
When the mistake was pointed out, the AGA issued a press release stating that Coral was “wrongly included” on their list of taboo sportsbooks.
As a bettor, it’s critical to trust that when a wager is placed and won it will be paid off, so click here for our complete list of trustable sportsbooks that are AGA approved.
Sports betting is now a big business in America and it’s growing exponentially.
Now with sports betting legal in more than two dozen states, each new market is generating an impressive new revenue flow that in most cases is benefitting the residents of each state, money that previously was being siphoned out of country by those illegal sportsbooks.
According to the industry newsletter Front Office Sports:
Sports betting and internet gambling revenue combined increased more than 200% year-over-year for the first nine months of 2021, reaching $5.36 billion.
As more states follow suit and create and tax their own sports betting markets, those total revenue numbers will continue to grow, but now it will be taxed, that money earmarked for local concerns, a better way to spend revenue that until recently was being spent elsewhere.
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Mike Lukas is a retired standup comedian turned freelance writer now living in Dallas, Texas, originally from Cleveland, Ohio. His love for the game of football and all things Cleveland Browns turned Mike into a pro blogger years ago. Now Mike enjoys writing about all thirty-two NFL teams, hoping to help football gamblers gain a slight edge in their pursuit of the perfect wager. Email: [email protected]
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