Since it started last year, the LIV Golf Invitational has had a hard time with most things. Even though it tried to get some of the best players from the PGA and European Tours to switch, the Saudi Arabia-funded circuit couldn’t get a TV deal until January 2023 and is still trying to get world ranking points.
Another big area where LIV Golf is having trouble making a difference? Where you bet on sports. From the looks of things, Greg Norman’s league will still be having trouble with this in 2023.
As of January of this year, sports betting was legal in 36 states. This year, even more states are likely to talk about it. And now that LIV Golf has a TV deal with CW and a full schedule, you would think that sportsbooks from coast to coast would be posting odds for upcoming events.
But that’s not true. Not only has the field for the first LIV event in 2023 not been set, but sites that are supposed to let you bet on LIV events don’t even list the league as something you can bet on. Both Bovada and FanDuel were once listed as places where you could bet on LIV Golf, but that is no longer the case.
TheLines wrote in June 2022 that only a few states let people bet on LIV Golf events last year. The site said that one reason for this is that each state sets its own rules for sports betting. The other reason is that LIV Golf didn’t have a governing body set up, which would have made it easier for it to work with more sportsbooks.
“Regulators in each state are different, and each state has its own rules. Most leagues need a governing body and certain other things to be able to offer. “Up until recently, LIV didn’t have that,” Christian Cipollini, a trader at BetMGM, told TheLines. “Some states only let one sportsbook operate at a time.” Those are the two big ones that most regulators need to see in order to approve an event. If it doesn’t have these two things, most regulators will say no.”
Now, if LIV Golf has a governing body or an integrity policy in place this time, there is a chance that more sportsbooks will let people bet on the rebel circuit’s events. But based on what we know now, it looks like it will still be hard to bet on LIV Golf events in 2023.
For now, golf fans who want to bet on the best events that LIV Golf has to offer can still bet on major events. Dustin Johnson and Cam Smith, among others, are set to play in the Master this spring. Golf fans haven’t seen them since they left the PGA Tour for the Saudi-backed European Tour.
