If online sports betting is ever legalized in the United States, it is a long way away.  Online casinos are having enough trouble getting regulated and casinos are perfectly legal in the United States.  Sports betting online or off has never been very welcomed in the United States.  Sports leagues like the NFL fear it will lead to corruption and bribery of players.

The NFL is so concerned about corruption that they have invested a lot of money in protesting legalized online casinos, even though legal online casinos have no bearing on legal sports betting.  Perhaps they are just concerned acceptance of online casinos will in time lead to the acceptance of online sports betting.

But legal online sports betting may not be the worst thing that could happen to the NFL and the other American sports leagues.  Here is, yet again, another example of how regulation is a better resolution than prohibition.

You had better believe that, legal or not, sports betting already goes on in the United States.  However, it is unregulated and there as hardly an accurate way of tracking abnormal betting practices. 

Sports leagues in Europe have partnered with online sportsbooks in order to keep tabs on irregular betting patterns on sporting events.  This gives sports officials a way of tracking what they suspect to be a fixed or thrown game.  If uncanny behavior on the part of an athlete matches with overwhelming betting odds in favor of his opponent, there is likely something unethical going on.