How US Open Betting Regulations Have Shaped the Market, According to Betzonic

The United States Open Championship, commonly known as the US Open, is one of golf’s four major tournaments and draws significant wagering interest from bettors across North America and beyond. Over the past decade, the regulatory landscape surrounding sports betting in the United States has undergone a dramatic transformation, and the US Open has sat at the center of many of these changes. Understanding how federal and state-level regulations have shaped the betting market around this event requires examining the legal shifts, operator behavior, and consumer access that have evolved since the landmark Supreme Court ruling of 2018.

The PASPA Repeal and Its Immediate Effect on Golf Betting

Before May 2018, sports betting in the United States was effectively prohibited outside of Nevada under the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act of 1992, known as PASPA. The Supreme Court’s decision in Murphy v. National Collegiate Athletic Association struck down PASPA as unconstitutional, opening the door for individual states to legalize and regulate sports wagering as they saw fit. The impact on golf betting, including wagering on the US Open, was immediate and significant.

New Jersey became one of the first states to launch legal sports betting following the ruling, with retail and mobile sportsbooks going live within weeks of the decision. By the time the 2019 US Open was held at Pebble Beach, bettors in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Mississippi, and Rhode Island could place legal wagers on the event. This was a structural change, not merely a cosmetic one. Legal operators were required to report transactions, verify bettor identities, and operate within frameworks that included responsible gambling provisions — requirements that had no equivalent in the offshore market that had previously dominated US golf betting.

The shift also affected the types of bets available. Regulated sportsbooks, operating under state licensing requirements, offered outright winner markets, round-by-round betting, and head-to-head matchup wagers. However, the more exotic proposition bets that offshore books had offered for years were slower to appear in regulated markets, largely because operators were cautious about regulatory scrutiny during the early years of legalization. This conservatism gradually faded as state regulators became more comfortable with the product offerings and as competition between operators intensified.

State-by-State Fragmentation and Market Complexity

One of the most consequential features of the post-PASPA regulatory environment is that there is no unified federal framework for sports betting. Each state that has legalized wagering has done so through its own legislation, with its own licensing requirements, tax structures, and permitted bet types. As of 2024, more than 35 states have legalized sports betting in some form, but the rules governing what bettors can do — and which operators can serve them — vary considerably from state to state.

For the US Open specifically, this fragmentation creates a patchwork experience. A bettor in New York can access mobile sports betting through a limited number of licensed operators, all of whom face a 51 percent tax rate on gross gaming revenue — the highest in the country. That tax burden has a direct effect on the odds offered to consumers, since operators must maintain margins that account for the cost of doing business in high-tax environments. By contrast, a bettor in Nevada, where the regulatory framework predates PASPA and the tax rate is considerably lower, may encounter different odds and a broader range of betting options on the same US Open field.

This complexity has prompted industry analysts and dedicated sports betting resources to map out the differences in access and product quality across jurisdictions. The resource at betzonic.com/us-open-betting-sites, for example, documents how available operators and market conditions differ depending on where a bettor is located, reflecting the genuine regulatory divergence that shapes what consumers can access during major golf events like the US Open.

The fragmented landscape has also created compliance challenges for operators. A sportsbook operating in multiple states must maintain separate licensing relationships with each state’s gaming control board, implement geolocation technology to ensure bettors are physically within state borders when placing wagers, and adhere to differing rules on promotional offerings. Some states prohibit sign-up bonuses or restrict the types of promotions operators can offer, while others permit aggressive promotional campaigns. These differences affect how the US Open betting market looks and feels to consumers depending on their location.

Regulatory Influence on Odds, Liquidity, and Market Depth

Regulation does not merely determine who can bet — it shapes the quality and depth of the betting market itself. In the years following PASPA’s repeal, the US Open betting market has grown substantially in terms of handle, the total amount wagered. The American Gaming Association estimated that over $1.8 billion was wagered legally on golf in the United States in 2022 alone, a figure that would have been a fraction of that total prior to legalization simply because the legal channels did not exist for most bettors.

Greater legal handle has attracted more sophisticated operators and, with them, more competitive pricing. When fewer legal options existed, offshore books could maintain wider margins because bettors had limited alternatives. As regulated operators have entered the market and competed for customers, odds on major golf events including the US Open have tightened. This is a direct consequence of regulatory expansion, not just of general market growth.

However, regulation has also introduced constraints that affect liquidity. In-play or live betting — wagering on outcomes during the course of a round — is one area where regulated US markets have historically lagged behind European counterparts. Operators in the United Kingdom, operating under the Gambling Commission’s framework, have offered real-time betting on golf for years, including markets on individual hole outcomes and shot-by-shot wagering on select events. US regulators have been more cautious about in-play products, partly due to concerns about integrity and the speed at which suspicious activity could be identified and reported. The result is that US Open live betting in regulated American markets, while growing, remains less sophisticated than what is available in more mature betting jurisdictions.

Betzonic has noted in its coverage of the US Open betting market that the integrity monitoring requirements imposed by state regulators — including mandatory reporting of unusual betting patterns to governing bodies like the USGA — have actually contributed to a more trustworthy market environment, even if they have slowed the rollout of certain product types. The relationship between the USGA and licensed sportsbooks has formalized over time, with data sharing agreements and integrity partnerships becoming standard features of the regulated landscape.

The Role of Operator Licensing and Consumer Protections

Licensing requirements in regulated states serve a dual purpose: they generate revenue for state governments through licensing fees and taxes, and they establish standards for how operators must treat consumers. For bettors wagering on the US Open, these consumer protection standards represent a meaningful departure from the offshore market. Licensed operators are required to offer self-exclusion programs, deposit limits, and responsible gambling tools. They must also maintain segregated customer funds in most jurisdictions, meaning that a bettor’s account balance is protected even if the operator encounters financial difficulties.

These protections have practical significance. Prior to widespread legalization, US bettors who used offshore books had no legal recourse if a dispute arose or if a platform failed to pay out. The regulatory frameworks that now govern US Open betting in states like Colorado, Michigan, Illinois, and Arizona provide formal dispute resolution mechanisms and require operators to respond to complaints through established channels. This has increased consumer confidence in the legal market, which is one reason handle on major events like the US Open has grown so substantially in a relatively short period.

Advertising regulations have also shaped how the US Open betting market is presented to consumers. Following a wave of aggressive marketing in the early years of legalization, several states introduced restrictions on promotional advertising, particularly around bonus offers and free bet promotions. Massachusetts, which legalized mobile betting in 2023, included specific advertising standards in its regulatory framework from the outset, reflecting lessons learned from other states. These restrictions affect how operators compete for new customers during high-profile events like the US Open, pushing them toward product quality and odds competitiveness rather than pure promotional spending.

The trajectory of US Open betting regulation over the past several years illustrates a broader pattern: legal markets mature over time, with initial caution giving way to more nuanced frameworks that attempt to balance consumer access, operator viability, and market integrity. The United States is still in a relatively early phase of this process compared to jurisdictions like the United Kingdom or Australia, where sports betting has been legal and regulated for decades. As more states refine their approaches and as federal-level conversations about a unified framework continue, the US Open betting market will likely continue to evolve — becoming deeper, more competitive, and more sophisticated with each passing year. What is already clear is that the regulatory decisions made at both state and federal levels have fundamentally altered who bets, how they bet, and what protections they enjoy when they do.