Future of sports betting: the pitfalls

ESPN discusses legalizing sports gambling with Michelle Minton. 

"The issue of sports integrity is something that always comes up," said Michelle Minton, consumer policy specialist who has opined on sports betting legalization as part of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a Libertarian think tank. "The argument is if we legalize sports gambling, the games will be rigged, people will be taking dives, et cetera. I think that's a red herring argument. I would make the argument that it's less likely to cause match-fixing."

Legalization won't, however, eliminate attempts to compromise games for gambling purposes. There will be gambling scandals in the future; the hope is that maybe they'll be detected sooner.

"It's big money," Minton said of the American sports betting market. "Anywhere there's big money there [are] going to be scandals. In the financial industry, there [are] always scandals. I'm not sure why with gambling, it's always considered such a landmark case every time a player or handful of players do something wrong. They're just people, and people do things wrong all the time in every industry."

Read the full article at ESPN.