Senator John McCain discusses legalizing sports betting in Congress

Washington D.C. is going to have to have some time to discuss gambling as the issue is coming from all sides. Two U.S. Congressmen, Frank LoBiondo and Frank Pallone, both from New Jersey, have recently introduced federal bills to amend the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act PASP, a 22-year-old federal law to ban any sports betting activity. But many other states and their lawmakers are trying to take this issue straight to Congress as the country should have already a sports betting network nation-wide. LoBiondo said: "As long you have the other major leagues saying that 'this is evil and bad' and 'we don't want it,' that will be an excuse for many to just stay away from it".

NBA commissioner Adam Silver is another of the forces that are pushing the government to get on the issue as some NBA teams have already entered into partnerships with fantasy sports operators: "I have talked to the commissioners in the other leagues about legalizing sports betting. I leave it to them to make any public statements they want to make on it. I will say that certainly all of them are interested in having a better understanding of the issue, and I know have assigned people in their organizations to study intensively the issue as well."

But the latest comments on legalizing sports betting in the United States have come from Senator John McCain: “I think that there are places for sports gambling in states, where gambling is legal. One of the problems I see with internet gaming is the ability to distort the playing field so that it can be harmful to individuals and lead to corruption in the sport. We obviously know that there are huge amounts gambled on sporting events, particularly football. I have no problem with gambling wherever it is legal…but I have concern about the possibility of corruption in some form of gaming that lend itself to that. We need a debate in Congress. 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”.