Betting on the U.S. Amateur Remains Persona Non Grata

While you can place all sorts of outlandish bets on the Albertsons Boise Open and D&D Czech Masters, whatever those tournaments are all about, you can't bet on the most prestigious golf event being played this week -- and one of the most prestigious played annually worldwide since 1895.

The U.S. Amateur remains persona non grata in the betting community. No sportsbooks, regulated or offshore, are offering odds for the Am. Even the mere question of why, sent to over a half dozen regulated sportsbook's PR departments, was rebuffed with responses essentially saying we're not touching that with a 10-foot belly putter.

"BetMGM will not be offering odds for the US Amateur," said BetMGM Sports Trader Matthew Wall via email. "This is a result of regulations and general interest being lower in an event that few bettors know the participants."

Meanwhile, if you wanted to bet on Johannes Veerman to hit a hole-in-one at the Czech Masters pre-tournament you could at +10000 odds on DraftKings. And I'm sure we all know who Johannes Veerman is.

Google search volume research suggests there's four-times more interest in the U.S. Amateur than the Albertsons Boise Open, a Korn Ferry Tour event, and D&D Czech Masters, a European Tour event, over the last seven days. The U.S. Am has also been searched nearly as much as the BMW Championship, the second leg of the PGA Tour playoff, which is also being played this week.

On the surface level, not offering odds for the U.S. Amateur makes sense. The rules about betting on an amateur event like this fall in a grey area.

For example, the rules for betting in New Jersey, where the Am is being played at Ridgewood Country Club and Arcola Country Club, say a "prohibited sports event includes all high school sports events" and "any collegiate sport or athletic event that takes place in New Jersey."

So no betting on high school sports or college sports played in New Jersey. But, based on the way I'm reading that, it doesn't say anything about non-collegiate or high school amateur events played in New Jersey. (The New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement did not respond to request for a comment on the legality of betting on the Amateur.)

There's also the moral element. Betting on the U.S. Amateur, where no prize money is offered and participants skew younger in age, feels, somewhere deep down, wrong, even for an avid bettor like myself. 

Then I remembered all the folks betting on college football and college basketball and, oh my god, if you can legally bet on college lacrosse, which you could last spring, why can't you bet on the U.S. Amateur?

The ultimate answer likely lies in the numbers. Handicapping an event with many-unknown amateurs in a format that includes a 36-hole stroke-play qualifier followed by six rounds of match play is difficult-to-impossible, even for hardcore golf aficionados. It could expose sportsbooks to big liabilities, which, of course, they want to avoid.

Take Austin Greaser. A rising senior at UNC, Greaser is No. 5 in the World Amateur Golf Rankings and finished runner-up in this tournament last year. He surely would have been one of the pre-tournament betting favorites, but failed to make the cut after the 36-hole qualifier. Meanwhile, 82nd ranked Carson Lundell is through to the second round.

Last year, James Piot won the U.S. Amateur as the No. 86 ranked amateur in the world. The year before, 56th ranked Tyler Strafaci won. Point is, for every Tiger Woods and Jack Nicklaus and Matt Fitzpatrick that win this event (AKA favorites), there are a half dozen other winners who come out of nowhere.

Yes, the U.S. Amateur is one of the most prestigious golf tournaments in the world, and one of the most fun too; where else can you see the next major championship winners before most people know their name? But, betting on it remains uncouth, even if the reasoning remains unclear.