By
Blake Roberts
Founder & Editor in Chief Updated: 24 October 2022
Blake Roberts Founder & Editor in Chief
Blake Roberts is the founder of Betting.US and is currently heading the creative team as Editor in Chief. Born and raised in Morgantown, West Virginia, Blake is a great sports fan, with football and basketball being his favorite. He’s our trusted voice for all betting-related matters.
The allure of Vermont, the Green Mountain State, has always been its natural beauty, relaxed pace of life, and low crime rates. It’s home to many people from other north-eastern states, particularly New York, and New Jersey, who are drawn to its easy-going atmosphere.
But for gambling lovers, Vermont disappoints in one major way: its reticence to embrace sports betting, which has been introduced to several US states recently.
In May 2018, the US Supreme Court struck down a federal law that prohibited gambling on sports in most states, giving them the go-ahead to create their own legislation for sports betting. Since then, sports gambling has boomed in popularity across the nation—but not in Vermont.
Ever since the ruling was made, the Vermont Sports Betting Study Committee has been trying to formulate regulations to govern sports betting in the state. The first regulatory hurdle holding up progress is determining where to allow sports betting.
Wendy Knight, the chair of the Vermont Sports Betting Study Committee, told The Centre Square:
We have not yet decided whether to recommend only online gaming, retail, or both…I think those questions need to be addressed first before we can really understand whether we want to recommend an existing administrative structure or a new administrative structure.
The concern when it comes to sportsbooks seems to be about how to protect and promote local businesses. State Senator Dick Sears said of sports betting legalization: “In the sports betting world, there are big players. One of my concerns is that when we go down the route of legalizing sports betting in Vermont, that we do not limit it to one player or one company — that we have a variety of companies available.”
A thriving sports betting industry could bring many opportunities and advantages to the state, such as new jobs, plus it could deliver substantial tax revenue.
What’s more, legalizing sports betting could protect consumers from the dangers of illegal betting operations. Recent busts of black-market betting in Vermont show that making gambling illegal doesn’t prevent it from happening. Plus, many Vermont gamblers simply make the trip to New Hampshire or New York—states where betting is legal.
Vermont is one of a small number of US states that don’t have a single tribal or commercial casino. Among the others are Georgia, Kentucky, and South Carolina.
The reluctance to move ahead with gambling legislation is nothing new in a state which has long been opposed to gambling. The few exceptions are the state-run Vermont Lottery and some types of charity gaming.
Some people blame the state’s predominant traditional and conservative mindset for hampering efforts to legalize gambling, claiming that the state is inherently resistant to change.
That said, Vermont does seem to be adopting more progressive attitudes in other areas. Cannabis was legalized in the state in 2018, for example, and Vermont issued its first retail adult-use cannabis business licenses earlier this year.
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