It’s official! Kansas becomes the 35th U.S. state to recognize sports gambling as a business, entertainment, and funding endeavor. This news is well deserving of a post as a ten year resident of the state of Kansas (and employee for the state for that matter). Anyways, Gov. Laura Kelly (D) signed and passed said bill on May 12th giving way to a whole new form of state tax funding all while betters alike rejoice! Ahh, the ole’ win-win! Below is a timeline of the history and evolution of sports gambling as we know it today.

• 1949 – Nevada legalizes recreational sports gambling

• 1951 – Federal government imposes a 10% tax on all sports wagering profits from casinos/bookies

• 1992 – PASPA is put into law banning advertising, licensing, etc. of sports wagering of any kind is prohibited (Professional Armature Sports Protection Act)

• 1994 – First known and proven occurrence of games been “fixed” based on sports wagering motives (Arizona St. basketball guard – Stevin Smith)

• 2018 – New Jersey becomes the second state to legalize sports gambling 69 years later

• Present – currently 33 states have some form of legalized sports gambling whether that be online, in the casinos, or both

This time of the year brings us the conclusion of the NFL Draft, the finish line to the lengthy and unnecessary tournament format that is the NBA Playoffs, the College Baseball World Series, and the heart of the the MLB regular season. The MLB regular season will hit the halfway point in July; by this point we have more than enough of a sample size to dive into some of the analytical trends that we can look for when making our plays. The numbers suggest favoring AWAY-UNDERDOGS on the run line (+1.5). These

teams are currently covering at a 58% rate. Tonight, those teams include: the Athletics, Orioles, and Rays. As far as the totals are concerned, the UNDER gives betters a slight edge covered at a 52% clip. Diving a bit deeper, at the individual team level the Astros are the most lucrative franchise with their games hitting the UNDER 69% of the time (31% OVER). On the other side of the spectrum, the Phillie’s games go UNDER only 40% of the time (60% OVER) The MLB Draft is about a month out (July 17th) and could we see a mid-major shortstop going first overall to the Orioles?! One mock draft has Cal-Poly shortstop, Brookes Lee, as the first overall pick (mlb.com). The Mustang’s shortstop hit .357 with 25 doubles, 15 home runs while racking up more walks (46) than strikeouts (28) this spring. CLICK HERE to access mlb.com 2022 MLB Mock Draft.

Kansas to legalize sports gambling!

Tweet