Official betting is the practice of placing a bet on an event in accordance with established rules. These rules may differ between sports and between states, but all are designed to protect the integrity of the sport and protect the interests of players, fans and bookmakers alike.
In general, all bets are settled based on the official result from the league or tournament’s official governing body. This includes overtime scores. If a game is abandoned, all bets are void unless they’ve already been settled – this doesn’t include markets such as quarter/half betting and goalscorer bets.
A major sports gambling scandal took place in 1919, when Joseph Sullivan paid eight members of the Chicago White Sox team to fix the World Series against the Cincinnati Reds. These players were banned from professional baseball for life, although many of them were eventually reinstated. Today, there are numerous rules against match-fixing and betting-related corruption in the game of baseball.
Sportsbook operators must partner with an in-state entity in order to operate. This can be a retail casino, horse racing track or even a professional sports team. In some cases, this requires a contract with the state’s tribes, as is the case in California. As a result, wagers on in-state college games are not permitted and player prop bets are also prohibited. The first official sportsbook in Iowa launched in 2019 and the state’s online sportsbooks started taking bets in 2021. Missouri passed legislation to legalize sports betting in 2022 but the sportsbook has yet to launch.