The History of Sports Betting: From Ancient Wagers to Modern Tools
Sports betting is older than most civilizations, and the way we bet today would be unrecognizable to the bettors who came before us.
By
Eric Pauly
Feb 2, 2026
6 min read
How Sports Betting Became a Multi-Billion Dollar Industry
Humans have been betting on athletic competition for thousands of years. Long before sportsbooks, odds feeds, and mobile apps, ancient civilizations placed wagers on chariot races, gladiatorial combat, and the earliest organized sports. The impulse to put something on the line when predicting an outcome is wired into us, and the history of sports betting tracks that impulse from dusty Roman arenas to the regulated, technology-driven market we know today.
Understanding where sports betting came from helps you appreciate what's changed and, just as importantly, what hasn't. The core challenge has always been the same: figuring out a fair price for an uncertain outcome. The tools have changed dramatically. Ancient bettors relied on gut instinct and crowd sentiment. Modern bettors have access to real time odds comparison tools that scan dozens of sportsbooks in seconds. This guide covers the full arc, from the earliest recorded wagers through PASPA's repeal in 2018 and the technology-fueled era we're living through right now.
article Summary
Sports betting dates back to ancient Greece and Rome, where wagers on athletic contests were common. Organized bookmaking emerged in 18th-century Britain through horse racing. In America, sports betting thrived underground for decades before the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (PASPA) restricted legal betting in 1992. The Supreme Court struck down PASPA in 2018, and the U.S. legal betting market has since grown into a multi-billion dollar industry powered by technology that gives bettors more data and tools than at any point in history.
Ancient Origins: Betting Before Sportsbooks Existed
The earliest evidence of sports betting stretches back over 2,000 years. Wagering on competition wasn't a niche activity. It was deeply embedded in the cultures that practiced it, often tied to religious festivals, civic pride, and public entertainment.
Greece: Wagers at the Olympics
Ancient Greece gave the world the Olympic Games around 776 BC, and informal wagering likely followed almost immediately. Greeks bet on boxing, wrestling, chariot races, and the pentathlon. There were no formalized odds or bookmakers. Bettors negotiated terms directly with one another, staking money, livestock, or goods on the outcome. The concept of "odds" as we know them didn't exist yet. What did exist was the fundamental human desire to back your judgment with something of value.
Rome: Gladiators, Chariot Races, and State-Sanctioned Gambling
The Romans took things further. Betting on gladiatorial combat and chariot races at the Circus Maximus was widespread. Rome actually regulated gambling to some extent, designating specific events during festivals like Saturnalia where wagering was legally permitted. Outside those windows, gambling was technically illegal (though enforcement was inconsistent, as you might expect). Roman bettors developed early forms of handicapping, assessing which gladiator or team of horses was most likely to win based on past performance. The concept of evaluating form and history before placing a wager is thousands of years old.
The Rise of Bookmaking: Britain and Horse Racing
Modern sports betting, as an organized commercial activity with set odds and professional bookmakers, traces its roots to 18th-century Britain. Horse racing was the catalyst, and the structures built around it shaped how we bet on everything today.
Horse Racing and the Birth of Odds
Horse racing became known as "the sport of kings" in England, and by the 1700s, racetracks had become major social and economic hubs. The first professional bookmakers emerged at these tracks, setting odds on each horse and accepting wagers from the public. This was a critical innovation: instead of bettors negotiating with each other, a bookmaker offered fixed odds and took the other side of every bet. The bookmaker's edge came from building a margin into the odds, a practice that is fundamentally the same as the vig sportsbooks charge today.
From Racetracks to Betting Shops
In 1961, the United Kingdom legalized off-track betting shops, and the industry exploded. Licensed bookmakers like William Hill (founded in 1934) and Ladbrokes became household names. The British model of regulated, taxed betting shops became a template that other countries studied for decades. The infrastructure built around British horse racing, including formalized odds, bookmaker licensing, and consumer protections, laid the groundwork for the global sports betting industry we see today.
Sports Betting in America: From Underground to Illegal
While Britain was legalizing and regulating, American sports betting took a very different path. For most of the 20th century, legal sports betting in the United States existed in exactly one place: Nevada.
Early American Betting and the Rise of Bookies
Sports betting flourished in the U.S. in the early 1900s, particularly around horse racing, boxing, and baseball. But organized crime's involvement in gambling during Prohibition and the decades that followed gave sports betting a reputation problem. The 1919 Black Sox scandal, where eight Chicago White Sox players were accused of intentionally losing the World Series in exchange for money from gamblers, became a defining moment. It cemented the association between sports betting and corruption in the public consciousness for generations.
Nevada Goes Legal, Everyone Else Stays Underground
Nevada legalized sports betting in 1949, and Las Vegas sportsbooks became the only legal option in the country. Everywhere else, betting happened through illegal bookmakers (known as "bookies") operating out of back rooms, bars, and eventually over the phone. The market was massive despite its illegality. Estimates from the late 20th century put the underground U.S. sports betting market at $150 billion or more annually. The demand was always there. The legal framework simply hadn't caught up.
PASPA and the Federal Ban (1992 to 2018)
In 1992, Congress passed the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (PASPA), which effectively banned sports betting in every state except Nevada (and grandfathered limited operations in Delaware, Montana, and Oregon). The law was pushed heavily by the major professional sports leagues, who argued that legal betting threatened the integrity of their games.
What PASPA Actually Did
PASPA didn't make sports betting a federal crime for individuals. Instead, it prohibited states from authorizing or licensing sports wagering. If a state wanted to legalize sports betting, PASPA blocked it. For 26 years, this law kept the U.S. legal sports betting market confined to Nevada while billions of dollars flowed through offshore sportsbooks, illegal bookmakers, and unregulated online platforms.
Murphy v. NCAA: The 2018 Repeal
New Jersey challenged PASPA for years, arguing it violated the Tenth Amendment by forcing states to maintain laws prohibiting sports betting. In May 2018, the Supreme Court ruled 7 to 2 in Murphy v. NCAA that PASPA was unconstitutional. The decision didn't legalize sports betting nationally. It simply removed the federal prohibition, allowing each state to decide for itself. New Jersey launched legal sports betting within weeks. By the end of 2018, several more states followed. The floodgates were open.
The Modern Era: Legal Betting, Data, and Technology
The years since the PASPA repeal have transformed sports betting in the United States at a pace nobody predicted. As of early 2026, over 35 states plus Washington D.C. have legalized some form of sports betting. The American Gaming Association reported that Americans legally wagered over $119 billion in 2023 alone, and the market has continued growing since.
Mobile Betting Changed Everything
The real catalyst wasn't legalization itself. It was mobile betting. Once states allowed bettors to place wagers from their phones, the friction of visiting a physical sportsbook disappeared. FanDuel, DraftKings, BetMGM, and others invested billions in user acquisition. The result is a market where anyone with a smartphone and a verified account can bet on thousands of events daily. This accessibility created millions of new bettors, and with that growth came a new need: tools that help bettors make smarter decisions in a market flooded with options.
The Rise of Betting Tools and Data-Driven Strategy
The most significant shift in modern sports betting isn't legalization. It's the democratization of data. A decade ago, sharp bettors had to build their own models, track odds manually, and maintain spreadsheets to find edges. Now, platforms like OddsJam, Outlier, and Unabated scan the entire market in real time, flag positive expected value bets, and compare odds across 40+ sportsbooks simultaneously. The amount of data now available to a recreational bettor in 2026 would have been unthinkable even five years ago.
This technology hasn't just made betting easier. It has leveled the playing field. Concepts like mastering ev sports betting and understanding your betting edge are no longer reserved for professionals with proprietary data feeds. Anyone willing to learn the fundamentals and use the right tools can develop a data-driven approach to sports betting. If you're new to these concepts, our sports betting education courses are a good starting point.
Final Thoughts
Sports betting has been part of human culture for over two millennia. The core appeal has never changed: using your knowledge to predict an uncertain outcome, with something real at stake. What has changed is the infrastructure. Ancient Greeks negotiated wagers in person. Victorian bookmakers set fixed odds at racetracks. American bettors spent decades in an underground market. And today, you can compare odds across dozens of sportsbooks from your phone in seconds.
The PASPA repeal in 2018 unlocked the largest legal sports betting market in history, and the technology that followed has given everyday bettors tools that professional sharps couldn't have imagined 20 years ago. Understanding this history isn't just trivia. It gives you perspective on how far the market has come, and how much further it has to go. The bettors who thrive in the modern era are the ones who combine old-school discipline with new-school data, treating every wager as a decision grounded in math, not just intuition.
History of Sports Betting FAQ
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