In a regulated sports betting market, official betting refers to bets that are settled using data provided by the governing body of a sport. As more states legalize sports betting, battles for control over data and what information is required to settle bets have emerged as primary fronts. Professional leagues are seeking out lucrative partnerships with sportsbooks and are increasingly looking at the bets placed on their games. This new visibility has heightened their concerns about integrity and a potential for corruption.

In the early 1900s, a bet was placed on the 1919 World Series between the Chicago White Sox and Cincinnati Reds that would go down as one of the biggest sports scandals in history. The bet was made by a professional gambler, Joseph Sullivan, who paid eight members of the Chicago White Sox (Oscar Felsch, Arnold Gandil, Shoeless Joe Jackson, Fred McMullin, Charles Risberg, George Weaver, Claude Williams and Joseph Cronin) around $10,000 each to fix the Series. The White Sox lost the series and were banned from baseball for life.

Gambling on any event sponsored by the NCAA at the professional, college or youth levels is illegal in Kentucky, and could put an athlete’s eligibility at risk. However, NCAA rules do not specifically address whether wagering on non-NCAAD events such as Super Bowl squares, home run derbies or NCAA tournament brackets is permissible. This may be decided on a case-by-case basis by individual institutional or conference policies.