Despite not having a single professional sports club in the state, and being several hundred miles from the nearest MLS team, Montana was the first state in America to legalize sports betting in 2019.
It took them a whole year to prepare before taking their first wager, but nevertheless, they were first to act. This may be a surprise to anyone who knows how conservative Montana is regarding gambling, but their measured approach aims to ensure gambling benefits the state and its’ people.
Their legal system around gambling is unique in America, and the Big Sky State was one of the few with pre-existing sports betting rules that technically allowed them to take wagers before the famous PASPA repeal.
Despite this, Montana is also the smallest sports betting market in America, with a revenue of just 66.5 million in 2024. However, that can be explained by the state’s tiny population.
I will explain how sports betting works in Montana below.
Pre-Existing Gambling Laws
When the federal government passed PASPA (The Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act) in 1992, it made sports betting illegal across America. There were a few exceptions to this rule, though.
The handful of states with pre-existing sports betting laws were ‘grandfathered’, meaning the old laws would still apply but no further sports betting would be permitted. Montana was one of these states.
They already had laws covering the following:
- Pari-Mutuel style betting (sports pools and fantasy sports)
- Pari-Mutuel betting on horse racing
- Parlay bets via Montana Lottery Sports Action
- Charitable gambling
The rules around each of these options were fairly restrictive, but still, it was possible to get a bet on some sporting events if you knew how to do it. However, they couldn’t expand it further. MLS fans would have been stuck with the odd sports pool if they could find it, and that’s it.
SportsBetMontana: State Controlled Bookmaker
Fast forward 30 years or so, and PASPA was repealed giving each state the ability to make their own laws around sports betting.
In 2019, Montana officially legalized sports betting via HB 725, granting the Montana Lottery control over the market. This meant that no other company could offer betting services in Montana, it was completely state controlled.
They created SportsBetMontana, the only sportsbook and betting app in the state. Customers can also bet via kiosks inside licensed venues, but it is via the same bookmaker.
In this way, the state government could collect all betting revenue without having to compete with private businesses, and use it on specific state projects. Of course, some of the money raised is used to help to balance the state budget, but it can also be directed towards area where the state wants to focus their growth. For example, in the years after legalization, much of the money was used to fund a scholarship program exclusively for Montana high school students seeking STEM degrees from Montana colleges and universities.
The state was actively attempting to promote STEM education to Montanans, and they wanted these people to study in the state too.
SportsBetMontana claim to return more than 80% of their revenue to customers in the way of winnings. That means roughly 20% is taken in profit, so in other words, there is a 20% tax on gambling. However, some of this goes to the licensed sports betting venues too, giving small businesses another vital income stream. More on this below.
Montanan Sports Betting Licenses
Montana’s setup is designed to be easy to enforce, and also to directly benefit the state. They might take a conservative approach to sports betting, but they are certainly not anti-gambling.
This is evident in the tiny $50 it costs to become a licensed Sports Betting Montana venue – and that last a venue for 3 years! The venue needs a gambling license already in place before they apply for a SBM license, but given there were more than 350 SBM locations in the state by 2020, the cost is obviously not prohibitive. Most venues are bars, restaurants and small casinos.
So why are there two different licenses? Well, while online sports betting is legal in Montana, you have to be inside a licensed building in order to make your bet. You can sit at home and use the app to browse and prepare your bets, but you can only use the app to place the bet inside a licensed venue. A venue with a gambling license might not want to offer sports betting though, they might just be a bingo hall, for example, so the sports betting side of things is separate.
All licensed locations have at least one sports betting kiosk with cellular communication technology connected to the central gaming system. Communication beacons in the location geofence the location’s perimeter so betting only occurs within the walls of the licensed establishment.
Licensed venues take a 6% commission on sales made inside their establishment, and this cost is absorbed by the bookmaker giving punters worse odds. So in terms of betting value, Montanan MLS fans are getting a rough deal.
MLS and Soccer Teams in Montana
There is no MLS team in Montana. In fact, there isn’t even an MLS team in any of the states bordering Montana either. It is the farthest state from a single MLS team in America.
It’s not because Montanans don’t like soccer, but because it is a scarcely populated state despite being so big. Sports teams need population density to prosper, and with a population of just 1.1 million (just 7.7 people per square mile), the Big Sky Country is not an ideal location.
Billings is the most populated town in the state but only has 117,000 people in it. For context, the biggest soccer stadium in MLS olds over 74,000 people and the smallest holds 18,000, so the chances of filling a soccer stadium in Montana are nil. I don’t imagine an expansion team here anytime soon.
Soccer’s popularity is growing in Montana though, especially among youth leagues. There is a strong presence for women’s soccer there too at college level, but there are no professional clubs.
There are no other professional sports teams in the state either, although college football and basketball get some attention. This means that anyone living in Montana has no ‘local’ team to support, but if they enjoy soccer they may well choose a club based on some other connection.