Will Sports Betting Expand?

November 11, 2010   ·   JoeMcDonald   ·   Jump to comments

With the undeniable prominence of the Internet in our everyday lives, as evidenced by the slew of mobile devices on one’s person at all times, access to gambling is as widespread as it has ever been, and thus the genre of sports-betting is growing exponentially.

And while the best online casinos already had a strong fan-base which just keeps getting stronger, some sports were never really bet fodder until the World Wide Web granted access.

Just how far sports-betting will expand, however, remains to be seen. Currently, baseball is one of the most highly bet-on sports in existence, coming in behind football and boxing. But will the genre expand to minor league baseball in the same way football betting has branched out to alternative leagues and boxing betting now covers non-sanctioned bouts?

The short answer: probably not. And it’s not due to any lack of fanfare. After all, minor league baseball is considered one of America’s bread-and-butter sports. There are many classifications in the minor leagues, including Rookie, Class A-Short Season all the way up to AAA, and every club at every level has an extremely loyal following.

One of the biggest reasons you will not see widespread sports-betting expand to this area is due to the lack of overall information available about the athletes.

In professional sports, you not only have an avenue to find out even the rarest and oddest statistics about a player, but you also have a window into their private lives. For example: betting on the Mets to win a ball game is, at least per discernment, more easily quantified – you not only know how Johan Santana is throwing due to record, but you also know how he’s dealing in his personal life.

Minor league teams do not offer that same insight, and therefore any bet placed is going to be riskier. Instead of betting with knowledge, must like counting the cards in blackjack, you’re flying blindly and playing with luck, more like video roulette.

The fact that betting isn’t going to expand to the minor leagues any time soon is actually a good thing. It helps preserve the integrity of the sport, especially for the lower-class minor league clubs.

Without so much money revolving around the leagues, there is far less chance that athletes will be corrupted for some big payoff. All in all, it’s a much safer bet never to bet.

One thing the betting world would bring is more notoriety to the respective leagues and teams. But as any minor league fan will tell you, it’s more about a pure slice of humble Americana and far less about being in the spotlight. So try as you might, you crazy and wide-reaching Internet, you cannot and will not corrupt the minor leagues.