The U.S. Open is just under a month away and Tiger Woods is still the odds-on favorite to win so I backed him. In the spirit of full disclosure, I didn’t just bet on Tiger but spread out a couple other bets on players from Rickie Fowler to Francesco Molinari and Brooks Koepka. The reason I was able to place these sports bets was because I was in New Jersey at the Betting on Sports America Conference a few weeks ago. Sports gambling is not yet legal in Illinois where I live, but it is legal in New Jersey. If you don’t live in a state where sports betting is legal, don’t worry there is no need to travel to New Jersey. If you are patient, sports betting will likely be available in your state soon.

In May 2018, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that one federal gambling statute the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act violated the 10th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. It illegally permitted the federal government to order states to take specific actions to prohibit sports gambling. This ruling did not make sports betting legal across the US, but rather stated the federal government could not control states from legalizing it. In turn, states are now free to pass laws to legalize sports gambling. Since the ruling, states such as New Jersey, West Virginia and Pennsylvania have already approved and regulated sports gambling. Other states, such as New York, Oregon and Arkansas are following soon with another 24 states having pending legislation.

Like the entire land-based gambling industry in the US, sports betting is a very cash heavy business. According to a recently published Emerging US Sporting Betting report by Fantini Research, the industry in the US is estimated to be about $810M, but forecasted to grow to about $5.7B by 2023. I was at the conference researching the potential impact that the introduction of sports betting across the US will have on cash management in the gaming industry. The consensus from everyone that I spoke to or listened to at the conference was positivity, excitement and rapid growth for sports betting in the US. Below are a few of the major highlights and takeaways from the conference and my research.

• The legalization of sports betting has spurred growth of new customers visiting casinos and racinos to place their bets.
• New sports betting customers have helped increase revenue in other areas of casinos from food and beverage sales to other areas of gambling like table games and slots.
• The gaming industry has traditionally been good with cash management, but the handling of increased amounts of cash from sports betting has increased the demands by the industry for solutions to help them be more efficient with cash management, in turn, increasing profits from this new revenue channel.
• While growth of sports betting has been rapid over the last year, there remain many legal and regulatory hurdles that must be overcome for sports betting to be legalized across the majority of the US.

Like any new industry with many opportunities for rapid growth and profits, there are many players that are fighting it out for a portion of the winnings in the sports betting industry. This will also be true in a few weeks time at Pebble Beach in California when some of the best golfers in the world will battle it out for a multimillion-dollar purse and the U.S. Open Championship Trophy. I am crossing my fingers that one of my picks will win and I get to share in the winnings as well. As is often the case with sports betting, success is not just based on luck but knowledge of the players / teams and their track records. Glory does their research to be the best in cash management solutions for our customers across many industries.