Don Jr. Tweets Sports Betting Joke During Super Bowl, Federal Legalization Soon?
Tom Pappert
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Donald J. Trump Jr. made a sports betting joke on Twitter during Superbowl LIII. Will federal legalization of sports betting follow?
“Anyone want the over?” joked the president’s son about the defensive slug fest, leading some sports enthusiasts to hope the administration may loosen federal regulations against sports betting after the Supreme Court allowed states to legalize it last year.
Anyone want the over?
— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) February 4, 2019
Trump Jr. was referring to the Over/Under, which is a bet paying winners if they correctly predict whether the combined points scored from both teams surpass (over) or fall short (under) of a number determined by oddsmakers.
This year’s Super Bowl was 56 points, so the 13-3 victory by the Patriots clinched the under for gamblers.
Last year the Supreme Court determined that the federal government could not interfere with states that choose to legalize sports betting.
Similarly, the majority posited, if Congress had known that the bar on state authorization or operation of sports betting would be struck down, it would not have wanted the parallel ban on the operation of sports-betting schemes by private entities to continue. The PASPA provision barring the advertising of sports betting met the same fate; otherwise, the court explained, “federal law would forbid the advertising of an activity that is legal under both federal and state law, and that is something that Congress has rarely done.”
The majority acknowledged that the question of whether to legalize sports gambling “is a controversial one” that “requires an important policy choice.” But that choice, the majority continued, “is not ours to make. Congress can regulate sports gambling directly, but if it elects not to do so, each State is free to act on its own.”
President Donald J. Trump previously suggested that a decision to lift the blanket federal ban could be considered, but noted that the administration “wouldn’t do it lightly.”
As Trump Jr.’s comical tweet turns heads, Big League Politics also discovered a Trump-related bet available on one sports betting website, allowing users to bet on how many times President Trump would tweet during the Superbowl.
The president did not tweet during the game, making more “under” bettors very happy.
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