Former ESPN President John Skipper Leaving Meadowlark Media
About 164 million adults, or two-thirds of the U.S. population, live in states where they can legally bet on Team USA (and plenty of other countries) at the Paris Olympics. That’s up from 97 million, or 40% of the population, from the pandemic-delayed 2021 Tokyo Olympics.
The 2024 Games, which officially opened yesterday, will be the most heavily bet on Olympics since the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (PASPA) was overturned by the Supreme Court in 2018, a decision that allowed all states to offer Nevada-type sports wagering. Plus, says American Gaming Association spokesperson Joe Maloney, the environment is all around better.
“Tokyo wasn’t a great barometer,” Maloney tells Front Office Sports. “There was the time difference, and COVID was still having an impact. We didn’t see that much volume. The betting environment this time around is much better.”
There will be plenty of action on contests such as basketball and soccer, but putting money on the Paris Games isn’t straightforward, especially for gamblers who want to bet on sports including gymnastics, track, and swimming. And bettors logging into their favorite apps may not be greeted with the types of options they expect. Plus, in some locations, they may not have the ability to wager at all.
Still, there are lots of opportunities—for fans and operators alike. “The Olympics open up a lot of possibilities,” says Kevin Hennessy, a spokesperson for Fanatics Sportsbook. “Patriotism, nontraditional sports, and star-studded teams, especially in basketball, lend itself to an exciting couple of weeks.”
What sports are expected to get the most action?
Longtime SuperBook at Westgate VP Jay Kornegay says he expects up to 80% of the Olympics handle to come from 5-on-5 basketball. Men’s 5-on-5 is already the most-heavily bet sport leading into the Olympics, with women’s 5-on-5 at No. 2, according to multiple major sportsbooks. That’s a product of both familiarity of the sport and its stars.
5-on-5’s popularity means the action has started, even before the opening ceremony—the U.S. men’s basketball team has already been a moneymaker for sportsbooks in pre-Olympics exhibitions. The star-stacked team didn’t come close to covering a spread of more than 40 points last weekend against South Sudan (Team USA won 101–100) and failed to cover 16.5 points Monday against Germany (92–88).
The WNBA’s surge in popularity ahead of its Olympic break will help propel interest in the women’s team. Although some of the league’s most notable names won’t be playing, Team USA is full of big names expected to command a healthy audience—and, in turn, bets on the sport.
The men’s and women’s 100-meter sprints, golf, soccer, and tennis are also likely to be among the most-bet sports during the Olympics. Perhaps surprisingly—given names such as Katie Ledecky and Caeleb Dressel—swimming hasn’t been a heavily bet sport in past Olympics, at least in the U.S.
What about judged sports such as gymnastics?
In states that allow betting on judged sports, action typically is limited to the winner of each event. So, despite its large audience, gymnastics, for instance, will have more limited betting options.
But beyond these limitations, bets aren’t even allowed in legal books in Massachusetts and Louisiana. The Massachusetts Gaming Commission barred bets where the “final outcome of the event is primarily based on the evaluation or assessment of a judge or panel of judges.” In Louisiana, wagers can be taken only “where the results are determined on the field of play and can be proven by a box score or statistical analysis.” The same goes for other judged Olympic events like surfing, equestrian, breakdancing, and BMX freestyle.
How much action is expected?
It’ll be open season for some events, like basketball, but operators may set lower limits on lesser-known sports, says Kornegay.
Part of this ceiling is due to a knowledge gap. Kornegay says betting operators often get help setting lines on Olympic sports from European oddsmakers who are more accustomed to action on sports that are less mainstream to Americans. And even with that help, they won’t offer as many options as U.S. bettors have become accustomed to in recent years.
Not that most bettors necessarily feel like they’re missing out on opportunities.
“Most people are not familiar with these sports and don’t follow them until they see them on at the Olympics,” says Kornegay. “There are always going to be hyped-up stars and those help the handle [total amount bet], but a lot of the sports don’t get mainstream coverage.”
How much of a role will television coverage play?
“You know the expression, ‘If you build it, they will come?’ If you put a line on anything that’s televised, people will bet it. Period,” longtime oddsmaker Danny Sheridan says. “During COVID when sports were shut down, people were betting on table tennis.”
Beyond more live events on NBC, Peacock will also offer more than 5,000 hours of live programming, including coverage of 329 medal events. Although it varies by location, bettors in states with legalized gambling, at best, will be able to place bets on only about 60% of those medal events.
Plus, the Olympics won’t be facing much competition for eyeballs besides Major League Baseball and NFL preseason. Sports including golf, NASCAR, and the WNBA are on break for various periods during the Paris Games.
Even if you weren’t planning to bet on the Olympics, you could still be hit with commercials from betting companies. NBC is allowed to take ads from sports betting operators.
Can Olympians place bets?
Nope. Anyone credentialed for the Summer Games—including athletes, coaches, officials, and media members—are banned from placing bets on the Olympics under rules that the International Olympic Committee put in place in 2006.
IOC rules have long barred athletes betting on their own sports, but the Olympics are considered a “multisport competition,” forbidding any participants in one sport from betting on any of the 300-plus events scheduled for Paris 2024.
For violators, according to the IOC, penalties can range from a warning for a first offense if the integrity of competition wasn’t impacted, up to four or more years if match-fixing is found to have occurred.
The modern Olympics have avoided match-fixing or points-shaving scandals, but the IOC has taken action against violations in the past. Peter O’Leary, a member of the Irish sailing team at the 2008 Summer Games, admitted to placing two bets that totaled 300 Euros on sailing competitions. The IOC Ethics Commission issued O’Leary a warning in 2012 only after it concluded his bets “had no impact on the result of the competition on which he bet” and he was unaware of the betting ban.
There have also been sanctions issued for non-betting manipulation of results, including at the 2012 Summer Games when eight women’s badminton competitors (two pairs from South Korea along with a doubles pair each from China and Indonesia) were sent home for tanking matches in an attempt to to improve their draw positions.
So now with the Paris Games here, plenty of fans will find ways to bet throughout the next several weeks, despite restrictions. But even in an environment of widespread betting legalization, even for the most eager gamblers, the pickings are notably slim.
