Don’t Forget: The State Hates Your NCAA Tournament Pool and It’s Illegal!

We at the Rio Grande Foundation don’t really take a position on gambling although our tendency is certainly that individuals and not the state should decide how to spend their hard-earned money. That said, we do take a position against “outrageous laws” in New Mexico.
This brings me to an outrageous law New Mexico has on the books that prohibits NCAA Tournament Pools. Said Greg Sanders of the New Mexico Gaming Control Board, “Even if the amount of money gambled is small, it’s still against the law. Don’t do it, there are agencies out there looking for it.”
There are several problems here. 1) The state has a lottery and garners millions of dollars from gambling on Indian reservations so clearly gambling is not a “moral issue”; 2) Don’t police officers have better things to do than break up nefarious NCAA Tournament pools? 3) If the state got a cut of the money from NCAA Tournament Pools as they do from the lottery and Indian gaming, what are the chances these private pools would be legalized? It’s all about the $$$.
So, have your tournament pool. Here’s a bracket to print out. And tell your elected officials that the police have more important things to do than chase after Super Bowl and NCAA Tournament pools.