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1700s
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The early Americans bet on makeshift
horse races, cockfights and bare-knuckle
brawls.
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1800s to
1900s
|
Horse racing saw the most widespread
popularity throughout the 19th Century
and into the early 20th Century.
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After the Civil War, horse tracks
began to dot the eastern landscape and
bettors from all economic sectors
flocked to the tracks in droves. Many
enterprising bookmakers started 'auction
pools' in the early days of horse racing
which involved auctioning off bets for
each horse in a race.
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Late 1800s
|
Professional baseball began to gain
popularity and, consequently, so did
betting on the sport. Baseball 'pool
cards' became a standard in urban areas
in the East.
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1920s
|
College football, college basketball
and boxing gained huge popularity with
bettors. Pool cards were the favorite
option of many bettors because of their
promise of riches during the tough
economic times of the Great Depression.
Football pool cards proved to be as
popular as the baseball cards even
though bettors faced the challenge of
picking a winning combination of usually
five or more games in hopes of a big
payday.
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1931
|
Gambling was legalized in Nevada.
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Mid 1930s
|
Athletic Publications, Inc. was
established by Leo Hirschfield in
Minneapolis, Minnesota. It became the
odds making standard for the sports
betting world for three decades. It set
the lines in all sports and distributed
them to bookies across the USA via
telephone and telegraph.
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1940s
|
The point spread was invented. Most
believe it came from professional bettor
and bookmaker Charles McNeil from
Connecticut.
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1950s
|
The implementation of the point
spread, along with the widespread
emergence of television can be
referenced as two factors that
perpetuated the massive growth of sports
betting during this era. More games were
offered by bookies and people could
actually watch the contests they bet on
at home or their local tavern.
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|
1951
|
A regulation was passed by U.S.
Congress imposing a 10% tax on all
sports bets placed in the United States.
This allowed the bookmakers to work
their trade openly in the public eye.
The first legal sports books in
Nevada were stand-alone shops which were
independent from any of the large
casinos. They were called 'turf clubs'
and had names like the Del Mar,
Churchill Downs and the Rose Bowl.
Betting options were posted on
chalkboards and cigar smoke was heavy in
the air.
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1974
|
The 10% federal tax imposed on sports
bets was deemed unconstitutional and
Congress lowered the tax to just 2%.
Casino executives then began to see the
potential advantages of opening a
sports book in their casino and they
wasted no time in getting into the
sports betting business.
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1975
|
Jackie Gaughan opened a sports book at
the Union Plaza Hotel and Casino in
downtown Las Vegas.
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1976
|
A sports book was opened at
Stardust. This became the prototype for
the modern Vegas sports book which has a
plush environment with plenty of seating
space and multiple television sets. New
electronic boards replaced the
manually-operated chalkboards.
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Late 1970s
|
Sports books were established in other
casinos at a rapid pace.
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1980s
|
Las Vegas Sports Consultants, Inc.,
an odds and information service, emerged
as a major force in the sports gambling
world and he helped usher in the
technological revolution.
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1986
|
The Las Vegas Hilton 'SuperBook'
opened.
The sports book at Caesars Palace was
reinvented.
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1989
|
The Mirage opened and was then
considered the most extravagant hotel -
and sports book - in Las Vegas.
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Starting mid-1990s
|
With the emergence of the
Internet, online sports books began
popping up in places such as Antigua,
Costa Rica, England and Ireland.
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2005
|
It was estimated that worldwide
online sports books took in nearly $70
billion a year in bets even as Nevada
sports book handle amounted to a bit over
$2 billion.
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