Regulation is always the answer.  Once again the United Kingdom has taught us a lesson on that subject.  In the United States there are several factions attempting to stall and ultimately prevent the legalization of online casinos in the United States.  Few are more active than the National Football League.  The NFL is convinced that regulating online casinos will bring about a huge ethics issues in their sporting events. 

The fear has been criticized as strange since legalizing online casinos has nothing to do with legalizing sports betting.  What makes the concern seem even more misplaced is the model that has been presented by the United Kingdom overseas.

Major sporting leagues in the United Kingdom have turned to online casinos and online bookmakers to be the watchdogs for irregular gambling patterns that may indicate matches have been fixed.  The system has been very successful and the methods could very easily translate to American sporting events; of course gambling on sports would have to be legal in the United States to begin with.

The latest blow of the whistle happened at Wimbledon this year.  The opening match of the tournament between a 109^th ranked player from the United States, Wayne Odesnik, and a 30^th ranked player from Austria, Jurgen Melzer, drew in about $980,000 in wagers.  The opening match of the tournament typically on attracts about $163,000 in bets.

No player has been found to be connected with any sort of unethical match fixing but investigations are sure to continue.  This is the second time in a fortnight that British authorities were tipped of about irregular gambling patterns.