The Olympic Games aren’t just a celebration of sport and skateboarding, but something of a bit of a dream for gamblers. There’s so much to bet on and over 20 million Americans plan to be placing wagers on the Games.
This is the first Olympic Games to take place since gambling laws in many American states took place. Since 2018, many states have made sports betting legal, especially online. There are over 20 states where legal bets can be placed with over 100 million gamblers. Now they have the opportunity to check out all the odds available on the Olympic Games and hopefully back some winners.
They will of course be checking to see what happens if their selection doesn’t take part. Look out for withdrawals aplenty either because of players getting Covid-19 or self-isolating because someone else did.
The 20 million figure comes from the American Gaming Association. They carried out a survey to see how many would be betting on the 46 sports that are now in the Olympics. Great sports such as trampoline gymnastics, sport climbing, BMX Riding and skateboarding. Well, the latter keeps them off the pavements at least. After all, who needs snooker, pool and cricket when you’ve got skateboarding?
8% of American adults said that they expect to place a bet on the Tokyo Olympics and 54% were interested. 25% said they were very interested in the upcoming Olympics and planned to be placing bets. 10% of Americans who say they won’t be placing bets said they’d be more likely too if it was legal in their state to do so.
That’s not too surprising to be honest. While there are some sports that just don’t belong on such a stage, there is basketball, athletics, tennis, baseball and soccer that people are used to be regularly placing bets on. Or they could just bet on British skateboarder Sky Brown, who has just turned 13.
Those surveyed suggested that they would be placing casual bets of bets with their friends. The most common method though is to go online and make their wagers. Since a US Supreme Court Judge ruled that individual states could decide how to legislate on betting, online sportsbooks aplenty have opened.
Whether there will be a massive amount of in-play betting remains to be seen. Tokyo is between 13 and 16 hours ahead of the States. It promises to be an Olympics like no other with empty stadiums due to the ongoing pandemic. All those athletes from all over the world descending on Tokyo during a pandemic, what could go wrong???
