People in some countries have been betting on sports for many years. The gambling laws are different in each country, so it shouldn’t be surprising that users in some parts of the world still don’t have access to a gambling site or a land-based bookie. However, if you decide to find out more about the sports betting history on this link, you will see that places like the United Kingdom play a vital role in the betting industry.

Millions of people from all over the globe bet on sports on a daily basis. Most of them are probably not interested in the history of this industry, but others will definitely want to know more. That’s why we will share a few amazing facts about the history of sports betting.

1. Horse racing plays a very important role

Nowadays, the leading online betting platforms offer a variety of sports. Some sites specialize in different things, but most bookmakers provide every popular option, including horse racing. The latter is one of the go-to options for bettors in the UK, but it does not have that many fans elsewhere.

Needless to say, things were different back in the day. Although some people placed bets on football, horse racing was one of the first sports that popularized this hobby. In fact, one of the people that are responsible for making this sport trendy among bettors is Harry Ogden. In the 1700s, he created horse betting odds based on each horse’s performance.

Although this might not seem impressive today, these odds helped punters decide whether they want to bet on the favorite or the horses that don’t perform that well. As you can probably guess, this changed the industry.

2. The first gambling laws are more around 200 years old

Sports betting was slowly growing in popularity back in the day, especially among the wealthy who were willing to put their luck to the test. Many people decided to form “bookmakers” that accept bets, but the odds were designed in a way to always be in their favor.  What was even more annoying was that many “bookmakers” refused to pay the winners, which led to numerous court cases.

In order to prevent some frauds from taking advantage of people, England decided to introduce different gambling laws. One of the most popular ones is the 1845 Gaming Act because it was the first such thing in England.

There were several other gambling laws after that, and each one was more refined and addressed more issues that people had to deal with before that.

3. The rise of online betting

Betting on sports using land-based shops was not that popular in some parts of the world. In fact, only people in some countries had access to those things, which was one of the reasons why the internet plays one of the most important roles in the history of sports betting.

Online betting was not that popular at first, but once more people had access to the internet, many companies noticed that this was a golden opportunity. Instead of going to land-based bookies to place a bet, punters had the chance to wager on their favorite sport from the comforts of their homes. Needless to say, online betting quickly became extremely popular, especially in the countries where gambling was legal.

Speaking of laws, online betting had a major impact on most countries’ gambling legislation. Since people started using VPNs and other tools to use some sites, many states decided to allow gambling so that they could earn money from the gambling companies that want to operate within their jurisdictions.

Today, online betting is becoming more popular every day, which explains why millions of people use their favorite bookmakers. Sadly, there are many countries where gambling is not legal yet, but this may change in the future.