A History of Sports Betting in America

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A History of Sports Wagering in America
How wagering evolved to where it is today

Despite what some politicians and others are saying, wagering on professional sports is now considered mainstream. Twenty years ago most Americans viewed it as a naughty-but-nice diversion, because in order to participate you had to have a local bookie –“Joe”. You also had to meet Joe on Tuesdays to settle up and you also needed a little self-control, because Joe let you bet on credit. Back then if you traveled to Las Vegas you had a glimpse of what we can experience today.

Nowadays it is easy to open a secure account with an offshore sports book, making that trip to Las Vegas unnecessary. Americans love to wager on sports, especially pro football – be it the office pool or an offshore account. There is still much debate over wagering on college sports, and both sides make good points.

The concept of backing one’s opinion with money is as American as “apple pie”. It ranks up there with auctions, free speech, free enterprise, and rugged individualism – part of what our great nation was founded on. But how did we arrive at where we are today?

The origin of sports betting in America lies deep in our history, and you might suspect it started with horse racing. History does record friendly wagers being placed on 2-horse match races in the 1700’s. However, other sporting events had greater appeal back then.

One sport that had a considerable following was sculling or rowing. Sculling races were held on the East River in New York and other eastern locales in the late 1700’s and early 1800’s. Spectators of all ages gathered along the riverbanks to watch these races, with bookmakers and gamblers in the crowd. Some of the “lingo” from that time still survives today. The word “skullduggery” describes the act of altering the race worthiness of an opponent’s rowboat before the ‘Big Race”.

About the same time a morbid sport (if one could call it a “sport”) attracted crowds and associated wagering. From about 1750 to1850 many American men owned dueling pistols, and many were called to use them. History has tended to hide this once accepted method of resolving disputes. Dueling was wide spread and reached epidemic proportions just before the Civil War. In 1804 Vice President of the United States Aaron Burr challenged former Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton to a duel, resulting in the death of Hamilton. If you think politics are rough today, this little episode should make you reconsider. After the Civil War dueling was discouraged as the general public was at last shocked by it and showed its disdain.

Following the end of the Civil War, baseball, boxing and horse racing emerged as the top three spectator and gambling sports and continued as such up until World War II. About that time football and basketball made their moves in popularity, but we are getting ahead of the story.

A New York newspaper article dated October 25, 1893 discussed “The remarkable growth of foot ball during the last few years…”. In this article John M. Ward, the manager of the New York Base Ball Club, was asked what he thought about a professional league of football players, after he had just witnessed a football game at Manhattan Field. Ward responded: “A professional foot ball league may eventually come, but many obstacles lie in its path before such a scheme can gain the confidence … I do not think that football, as at present played, could be made popular from a professional standpoint. The game is so complicated that, while college men understand the technicalities and beauties, the general public does not. At present there is too much massing forces and the forming of human pyramids for the game to be wholly satisfactory, from a spectator’s standpoint. … Football as played in different countries attracted me particularly, and the game, to my mind to be successful professionally in this country, would be the one played by the Australians. … There is more free kicking and open play, and I think that that sort of a game would eventually become popular here.”

Ward was correct in his assessment of the game. He was saying that the game as played was too bound-up and Rugby-like. It needed to be opened up and he proposed a Soccer style of play. What the game really needed was a few key rule changes and the forward pass to “open things up”. By the time all this came about it would be some 40 years later.

At times in the early 1900’s sports wagering was considered so mainstream that it should have raised some eyebrows. A 1916 Ohio newspaper article headlined – “He Warbled; Cost $2,500”. The article went on – “It cost one Massillon rooter, a well known Massillon man, just $2,500 to open his mouth at the Courtland shortly after the lunch hour Sunday. This ill-advised Tiger fan declared in the lobby that the Bulldogs {Canton Bulldogs} would have no chance against the orange and black. Jim Thorpe {Pro Football Hall of Famer} overheard the remark and asked the Massillonian whether he cared to stand back of it. The Tiger did, but was somewhat taken back when the famous Indian wrote out a check for $2,500 and asked that it be covered. The Massillon man stood by his guns. Now he’s wiser and Thorpe richer by $2,500.” If Pete Rose is looking for precedence he has found it here.

Another newspaper article appearing in the New York Times before the Sept 24th 1935 boxing match between Joe Louis and Max Baer, flashed sub-headlines – “Receipts of Over $1,000,000 Assured for Spectacle at Stadium Tuesday Night - BETS EXCEED $5,000,000”.

In the college ranks, sports and gambling also at times intertwined with little uproar. Sports writers and active college coaches (Yost, Rockne, etc) would tout picks, and the writers would sometimes referee football games!

Throughout the last century the public’s acceptance for sports wagering has fluctuated with the occurrence of betting scandals. The most notable was baseball’s “Black Sox” scandal of 1919. Just after gaining its own popularity, pro football had its own betting scandal in the 1946 National League Championship game between the Chicago Bears and the New York Giants.

The 1930’s are sometimes referred to as the “Golden Age of Sports” but it was also the “ Turning Point” for sports wagering. The big three, baseball, boxing and horse racing were at their peak and about to start a decline. Two major changes were about to take place – one in the fundamentals of bookmaking and the other in the game of pro football.

At this time the majority of the baseball betting handle was not team vs. team, but more of a “numbers” game based on runs scored by each team. Cards were purchased each week from 25 cents to $5 each. Four or five baseball teams were randomly assigned for scoring runs – it was more luck of the draw than skill. The cards paid off for high and low and other consolation prizes. The bookmaker worked on low price and high volume with these very popular baseball-betting cards.

Just like today, the general betting public didn’t like betting baseball or football on the odds or money line. At some point in the mid 1930’s the “pointspread” evolved. Bill Hecht has long been credited as being the inventor of the pointspread. Later Ed Curd and Charles McNeil perfected it with 11 to 10 odds to give bookmakers the 4.54 % edge on single wagers. However, it was an idea whose time had come and the concept of the pointspread was probably moved along and developed by many different sports handicappers of the time. Retailers were first to used the pointspread as a promotion item in the form of a “football parlay card”. Local stores would hand out parlay cards or publish them in newspapers, and give premiums for winning parlays. The bookmakers were slow to change, but by 1941 the pointspread and the parlay card were in full use and included basketball. After World War II no one seemed to remember any other type of wagering.

The other change came in the game of pro football itself, and the colleges soon followed. It was the end of the 1932 pro football season and the Chicago Bears and the Portsmouth Spartans were tied in the standings. A playoff game for December 18th was scheduled, but a snowstorm required the game be played indoors at Chicago Stadium (later the home of the Chicago Bulls). The indoor site was far from ideal. It had a shortened 60-yard field and fences right at the sidelines. Because of this, a couple of rule changes were made. First, kickoffs were made from the 10 yard line, and more importantly, the ball was brought in 10 yards from the sideline after out-of-bounds plays – “hash marks”, what a concept!

Under these modified game rules, the two teams battled through three scoreless quarters. In the last minutes of the game an interception gave the Bears a chance to score and assure a win. On fourth-and-goal Bronko Nagurski faked a plunge into the line, and then straightened up and tossed a short pass to Red Grange for the winning score. The Spartans complained that Nagurski wasn’t five yards behind the line of scrimmage as the rules required. But, the play stood and the Bears won 9-0.

Three rule changes for the next season resulted from this indoor game. 1.) Officials would bring the ball in 10 yards from the sidelines after a play that ended within five yards of the sideline. 2.) Passing became legal from anywhere behind the line of scrimmage. 3.) The league was divided into two five-team divisions, with the winners to play a championship game at the end of each season.

The public immediately accepted these changes, and football started its rise in popularity, eventually surpassing baseball as America’s number one spectator and gambling sport. As all this was happening, pointspread wagering was fitting the scoring style of both football and basketball like a glove. From this 1930’s “Turning Point”, sports wagering progressed with the aid of radio and television to what it is today with several tweaks along the way, including the addition of over/under and teaser bets. Early on in 1942 Charles McNeil was said to have invented the teaser bet. Some 35 years later Bill Dark of Las Vegas introduced over/under total betting in the late 1970’s.

It is said that only baseball and jazz are true American innovations. If so, then the pointspread is our hat trick.
 

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