Sports betting is a huge industry
When former NBA referee Tim Donaghy turns himself into federal authorities this week, as is widely expected, he will face charges that he or his associates bet on games in which he may have made calls to affect whether teams covered the point spread. NBA Commissioner David Stern called the scandal “the most serious and worst situation” in his 40 years with the league. (Donaghy, 40, has been an NBA referee for 13 years. He earned $260,000 last season). Sports betting, both legal and illegal, is a huge industry, providing big payouts for simply picking a winner or accurately handicapping a loser. The surprising is just how massive the sports betting industry has become…. 
Last year, the Nevada State Gaming Control Board reported $2.4 billion in legal sports wagers. While illegal bookies obviously don’t report data on their operations, illegal sports gambling dwarfs legal betting, primarily because of geography: You have to be in Nevada to place legal wagers - but you can bet illegally just about anywhere. In 1999, the National Gambling Impact Study Commission reported to Congress that up to $380 billion was illegally bet on sports in the U.S. each year. That makes the sports betting industry more than six times larger than the combined value of all 122 professional sports franchises in the NFL, NBA, MLB, and NHL. Football is by far the largest component of legalized sports gambling, accounting for almost half of all sports betting in Nevada. Basketball wagers are the second most popular. Sports betting is and will always be a huge industry! Regards: Sport Book Guide