Senator John McCain was recently on Capital Games, an ESPN radio talk program. McCain was asked about legalizing betting on sports and he responded that we need a debate in Congress.
McCain said, “We need to have a talk with the American people, and we need to probably have hearings in Congress on the whole issue so we can build consensus.”
McCain is a hardcore statist. But he sometimes understands his audience, so he did a little bit of pandering here. Notice that he doesn’t come out and say that he favors legalizing sports gambling. He just says we need to have a conversation about it.
He knows that he would sound ridiculous and unreasonable if he flatly states that he fully supports the government’s banning of betting. There are millions of Americans who play fantasy football and do other forms of gambling, so most of these people understand that it is an overreach of the state to interfere with such activity.
As with almost everything that goes through Congress, there are exceptions put in there by lobbyists and Congressmen trading favors. The Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act of 1992 prohibits sports betting in all but four states – Nevada, Delaware, Montana, and Oregon. Nevada has a further privilege of being the only state that allows single-game betting.
This issue has become a little hotter of late, with the NBA commissioner advocating a few months ago for Congress to regulate and monitor sports betting. It is far from a completely pro-liberty position, but it would be better than what we have now.
Making Progress
With McCain essentially being forced into a position of at least not expressly supporting the current ban, we can see that popular opinion is on the side of legalization.
I can envision this situation playing out similar to the legalization of marijuana. Changes will happen at the margin. More states will start to defy the federal government, as they should. I see the legalization of marijuana spreading to more states soon and I think the legalization of sports betting will be a few years behind.
Online poker was effectively banned several years ago by Congress and it made a lot of poker players mad, and justly so. I think the broad subject of legalizing sports betting can form coalitions. Online poker players will support legalization because it is close to their heart. And while football is the biggest sport in terms of betting in the U.S., other sports fans will join in.
Of course, you don’t have to be a sports fan to take a pro-liberty position here. It seems elementary to have to explain this to people, but just because you favor legalization, it doesn’t mean you favor the action. You can support drug legalization without advocating that people use drugs. You can support legalizing sports betting without betting yourself or even advocating that others gamble.
McCain was wrong in saying that there needs to be a talk with the American people. First, the banning of sports gambling is unconstitutional. There is nothing in the U.S. Constitution that grants power to Congress to regulate sports betting. This is an issue that should be left to the states or the people, as stated in the 10th Amendment.
Second, McCain doesn’t need to “talk” to the American people. Why? Because it is none of his business. His only business on this issue right now should be to repeal the federal laws against gambling.
This is not an issue of polls and what percentage of Americans approve of sports betting. This is an issue of liberty. The only reason we need to build a consensus is to force the nanny statists like John McCain to back down.
Let’s free sports betters across the nation.
