The NCAA has joined the major professional sports leagues — MLB, the NBA, the NFL, the NHL — in a lawsuit that strives to prevent Delaware from allowing single-game bets, according to the Associated Press. In the lawsuit, the groups assert that betting would:
“Irreparably harm professional and amateur sports by fostering suspicion and skepticism that individual plays and final scores of games may have been influenced by factors other than honest athletic competition.”
Delaware hopes to start offering single-game sports betting in September with the start of the NFL season. State officials decided to institute the betting plan to help fund state programs. The state’s plan looks to take advantage of a loophole in a 1992 congressional ban on sports betting. Congress allowed Delaware, Nevada, Montana and Oregon to continue sports betting program that were already in place between 1976 and 1990. The NCAA and professional sports leagues object to Delaware’s plan because the state never offered single-game sports betting during that period and is basically starting a new betting product.
