Blockchain and sports gambling seem to be a natural fit. Sports gambling has been at the forefront of the news cycle since the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a federal statute that banned states from authorizing sports gambling in Murphy v. NCAA. Since then, New Jersey, Delaware, Mississippi and West Virginia have passed laws allowing wagering on the results of certain sporting events. New York, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island are quickly moving towards the legalization of sports gambling and a number of other states are expected to follow.

Blockchain has already proven to be a reliable partner for online casino gambling. In the past few years, a fruitful relationship between online casino gambling platforms and blockchain technologies has developed. Satoshi Dice, which first gained popularity in 2012, allows users to gamble their cryptocurrency through a blockchain-based, peer-to-peer dice prediction game. Virtue Poker, a ConsenSys-backed, decentralized poker platform, uses blockchain to ensure that casino operators (the “house”) cannot tamper with the integrity of a wager. And ZeroEdge uses smart contracts and blockchain to eliminate the “house” fee that is typically passed on to gamblers.

Thus, given the opening for sports gambling, it is easy to imagine a relationship forming between sports betting and blockchain technologies. Blockchain may allow casino operators and other entities to reduce transaction fees, speed up payment processing, increase gambler anonymity and flag problematic transactions. Some sports betting entities, such as daily fantasy sports behemoth FanDuel, have already begun exploring such opportunities.

However, even within states that have already legalized sports gambling, there are still a number of factors to consider for those aiming to utilize blockchain technologies within their sports betting platforms. Such considerations include, for example: