When March Madness tips off on Tuesday it’s estimated that 4-in-10 Americans will gamble on the games, with $10 billion on the line according to sports betting experts.
While sports gambling has largely been legalized in the U.S., including in Illinois, do brackets count under those laws? Could it be evidence of a crime? Felony gambling? And, if so, why aren’t the police raiding your house and taking you away in handcuffs?
As you’re trying to work up a perfect March Madness bracket consider this question: “Am I breaking the law?”
That question seems to come up every year, so this year NBC5 Investigates whether you have something to worry about.
Brackets become Bibles for devout, season-long college basketball fans. There are others who jump into March Madness just for the part-time adrenaline rush, to be part of the proverbial party.
“They’re doing it for the fun of it. They’re doing it for the bragging rights,” says Marjorie Connelly, who supervised research at University of Chicago for an Associated Press report on what motives March Madness bracket-makers. “The number one reason: it’s for the glory of it all. Secondly, it’s for money.”
More than half of those surveyed say they know it’s gambling, but the question remains: is it illegal gambling.
“Well, technically it is,” says Robert Loeb, a former Cook County prosecutor and longtime private attorney who handles gambling-related cases. “The general rule nationally is gambling is illegal, and it only becomes legal once the state legislatures make certain kinds of gambling legal, license companies and what have you.”
If brackets aren’t legal, why doesn’t law enforcement look at this and say: “it’s illegal gambling and we need to do something about it?”
“Well, I’ll give you, I’ll give you a couple answers,” says Loeb. “Prosecutors are elected officials, OK. Think of after everybody who’s doing this little bit of recreational gambling, they’re not going to get votes from those people. And it’s so widespread, they’re not going to get a lot of votes. That’s one answer. Secondly, they got much more to do with drugs and gangs and, you know, and violent crimes. So that’s not a priority.”
Loeb tells NBC Chicago that there is another factor at play too.
“The ratings from March Madness and the lobbying from media, (which) is getting huge ratings from this, doesn’t want to stop the gambling,” he said.
Loeb also concedes police, prosecutors, judges, have all been known to participate in office pools during March Madness, for the Super Bowl and other sports.
“Prosecutors aren’t interested,” he says. “No harm, no foul, nobody’s upset. Why attempt to enforce it?”
There can be larger risks and over the years there have been lines crossed including cases of student-athletes shaving points to cover bets. One notorious case 30 years ago saw student athletes at Northwestern University embroiled in a point-shaving scandal.
Loeb says that now there are NCAA rules prohibiting student athletes from taking part in March Madness pools.
Even if law enforcement officials generally eschew March Madness gambling investigations, there is one law that could snag basketball enthusiasts who make a lot of money from wagers, pools and all. Americans are supposed to claim all gambling income on your taxes. Not doing so could be a costly bet, potentially running afoul of the IRS.