Legal News

Have you ever wanted to place a sports bet but found the process inconvenient? Sure, you could always place your bet online with an offshore operator, but not everyone wants to do that. For one, some aren't comfortable trusting their money with an overseas gambling operation. Also, the legality of such operations remain murky at best.

Now residents of Nevada will be the first to have an easy and legal option beyond the sportsbooks: a gambling mobile app. The application is designed to only work when a person is in Nevada. When visitors from out of state are in Nevada, the phone application will allow them to place sports bets, whether they are in a casino or not, until they cross back outside of Nevada state lines.

The gambling mobile app is being launched by American Wagering Inc., for BlackBerry mobile phone devices. American Wagering operates almost 60 Leroy's Horse and Sports Place sports books in Nevada. They hope to launch applications for the iPhone, Droid and Windows phones in the near future. The timing of the BlackBerry application launch is designed to allow bets to be placed for the first college and NFL football games of the season, The Associated Press reports.

Vic Salerno, CEO of American Wagering is clearly excited about the possibilities of the new application. So excited that he couldn't avoid using a cheesy poker reference to express himself. "I'm all-in on this," said Vic Salerno, American Wagering's chief executive. "We've reinvented the company entirely."

Nevada gambling regulators have approved the application for the BlackBerry. Separate approval will be required by the Nevada Gaming Control Board for each operating system. The application requires uses to appear one time at one of the Leroy's locations when they open their account, in order to verify age and set the account to a certain phone. Once the account is created, GPS combined with cellular tower technology is used to make sure the better is within the state of Nevada.

State gambling laws prohibit sports wagering in most states, though of course not Nevada (nor Oregon, Delaware and Montana). Most states allow casino gaming, horse racing, and dog racing and the lottery. The new application is likely to create quite a bit of buzz. Although it is limited to Nevada, it will serve as an interesting test case for legalized online sports gambling in the United States. Related Resources:

• The Internet for the Public (FindLaw)
• House Bill Would Legalize Online Gambling (FindLaw's Blotter)
• State Gambling Laws (FindLaw)