The Professional Golfers’ Association (PGA) Tour would be allowing on-site betting on Tour events at the golf courses where the events are taking place.
Commissioner Jay Monahan has announced that the PGA Tour had been planning to allow live sports betting at the stops of the Tour by 2020. The official announcement for the on-site betting options was made by Monahan in Japan, at the time he was present at the first official Tour stop that has ever taken place in the country – the Zozo Championship.
As Mr. Monahan shared for Agence France-Presse, on-site betting that would be allowed at the PGA Tour’s stops is expected to attract more fans to the sport. According to the Commissioner, when done right, on-site betting would provide golf fans which the chance to become more engaged with their favorite sport for a longer period of time and would make them more interested in what is going on across the entire playing field.
Since Jay Monahan replaced former Commissioner Tim Finchem in 2017, he has been focused on popularizing golf and opening up new markets and revenue streams for the sport. After the decision of the US Supreme Court to allow sports betting in the country, the PGA decided it would be smarter if it starts offering the new form of gambling in order to get a chunk from the newly-opened sports betting sector.
PGA Tour to Unveil On-Site Betting Option to Take Advantage of Recent Sports Betting Market Expansion
Commissioner Jay Monahan has not been ready to answer to questions who betting at PGA Tour events would take place. As unveiled by the Association, the PGA Tour is currently developing its own betting product in collaboration with IMG Arena, which provides live streaming and virtual sports products to bookmakers.
Even though he did not reveal exactly what betting products are set to be presented, Commissioner Monahan revealed that only positive bets would be offered as an on-site betting option by the PGA Tour. He further reminded that betting on course is currently legal in many international gambling markets. Through the implementation of the right systems in place, both in terms of monitoring activity and integrity program, the PGA Tour would be able to provide its fans with a completely new betting experience and take advantage of the newly liberalized sports betting market.
The development and upcoming release of the new betting service would make the PGA Tour the first major sports league in North America to offer betting at its events. It would certainly not be the last to do so, as an increasing number of sports leagues has been looking for a way to generate more revenue by taking a piece of the newly-opened US sports betting market. Back in February 2019, the PGA Tour revised its regulatory provisions regarding sponsorship agreements with gambling brands following the changing sports betting environment in the US and a few months later, in July, it revealed a multi-year content and marketing deal with DraftKings.
