Gambling-related fraud of sporting events is a big deal, as it should be. Today (February 14), lawyers for the NCAA, NFL, NBA, MLB, and NHL are in a Trenton, New Jersey federal courtroom to argue that Governor Chris Christie's plan to allow Nevada-style sports gambling in the state runs counter to a federal law barring such wagering in all but four states and would ruin the integrity of sports. Specifically, the sports leagues, in their August 7, 2012 complaint, say that New Jersey's plan would "irreparably harm amateur and professional sports by fostering suspicion that individual plays and final scores of games may have been influenced by factors other than honest athletic competition."

What the sports leagues are alluding to is a concept called uncertainty of outcome. It's what differentiates spectator sports as a form of entertainment from other (scripted) options such as books, films, musicals, and professional wrestling. It's a primary reason sports are at least a trillion-dollar business—why broadcasters are willing to pay billions for the right to telecast sporting events, why advertisers were willing to pay upwards of $3.8 million for a 30-second advertisement during the recent Super Bowl, and why consumers are willing to dole out hundreds of dollars a year for various sports channels on cable television and pay-per-view events. It has even been analyzed in legal proceedings. In a high-profile 1997 case concerning who owns real-time sports data under copyright law, the federal judge reasoned that "[u]nlike movies, plays, television programs, or operas, athletic events are competitive and have no underlying script."

Uncertainty of outcome is also the reason American sports fans should take a moment to pause when commercialized sports are juxtaposed with the Quiz Show Scandal from more than 50 years ago. The web of laws applicable to sports, such as the Sports Bribery Act of 1964, only prohibits gambling-related corruption. There is no federal law explicitly preventing the clandestine manipulation of sporting events to enhance suspense. This gap is problematic. As with certain televised quiz shows decades ago, the in-game action of sporting events can be contrived in profit-maximizing ways. The federal law passed in the wake of the Quiz Show Scandal does not explicitly include televised sports; it only forbids deception of the public in connection with contests of an "intellectual" nature. Wheel of Fortune, Jeopardy!, and Who Wants to Be A Millionaire are covered by the law. Football, basketball, and baseball are not.

The sports-league plaintiffs in the New Jersey lawsuit correctly point out consumers care about the integrity of sports outcomes. They know that a considerable percentage of fans will tune out if the games are perceived to be rigged.