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Sports Betting in North America

While online betting is a part of the larger online gambling industry, it’s also in its own world, with each country providing a unique set of laws and regulations, and challenges — all of which should be understood before affiliates attempt to get into the online betting business.

Although legal restrictions can get pretty confusing in almost any country, nowhere are those laws and regulations more bewildering than in North America.

Online gambling resources like the CAP News page will help you stay on top of the regulatory situation. And when you’re looking for a program, we can help you find dozens of licensed online betting sites to promote as an affiliate marketer.

The United States
“In Nevada, the only state where sports betting is legal, wagers on the Steelers-Packers showdown totaled $87.5 million,” per the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. “If you count illegal bets, the total is probably in the billions. Nevada sports books made $724,176 on Super Bowl XLV, state gaming officials said.”

And that’s just land-based betting. And just in Nevada.

How can you channel some of those millions into your sports betting affiliate business? First, you need to find an online betting affiliate directory that breaks programs down country-by-country.

At the CAP Listed Programs page, for example, each betting affiliate program lists exactly each country where they’re licensed to do business.

Bodog, BetUS, and Twinspires — the official betting site for the Kentucky Derby — are examples of major online sportsbooks that serve the U.S. market. Betfair holds a sports betting license in America, too, for example.

Bodog and BetUS offer a robust American sportsbook, offering odds on all major sporting events from the NFL to the NBA, from college football to professional golf, and most other points in between.

Promoting these brands, and other brands like them, that are authorized for U.S. betting, is simply a matter of choosing the partner that best matches your affiliate marketing niche. As we discussed yesterday, that could be the form of a sports team you like — and if that’s the case, you’re likely to find odds for that team in some shape or form at any major U.S. sportsbook.

From there, you follow the standard affiliate marketing rulebook for adding the program’s ads to your site and begin promoting.

Canada
In Canada, the government has worked to regulate and legalize online gambling, but sports betting is often still carried out by the same international brands that cater to the U.S. market.

And Canada also has the same level of griping about sports betting laws. Ontario Member of Parliament Joe Comartin recently unveiled new legislation to change sports betting laws.

“It’s silly now,” Comartin said in the pages of the Toronto Sun. “Some of this (betting laws) goes back hundreds of years when the King had a problem with his soldiers gambling too much. … We need to bring it into the 21st century.”

This argument acknowledges the fact that Canadians will bet if they want to, and laws restricting it reflect an earlier society.

But be that as it may, Canada is still more liberal with its gambling laws than is the U.S. To that end, Canadian-based online sports betting affiliates can choose an international program like Bodog, without fear of legal repercussions. 

We’ll explore Mexico’s online betting laws later this week, as part of the Latin America sports betting guide.