PORTLAND, Ore. — With the Super Bowl just around the corner, thousands will place bets on the big game.
For now, Oregonians can only place those bets in a sports book, like those in Las Vegas, or an offshore betting website.
But starting this fall, Oregonians will be able to bet on every NFL game. That's because Oregon Lottery will roll out a new feature on its phone app just in time for next season.
"It's all about offering players more opportunities to play," said Chuck Baumann with Oregon Lottery. "We'd love to have a lot of people playing just a little and our hope is that a sports betting game is going to appeal to yet a different group of people."
This is all possible after a Supreme Court decision in May essentially gave each state the option to legalize sports gambling.
Baumann said Oregon Lottery isn't focusing on just football.
"The beauty of it is with the Supreme Court ruling that opens up the doors for sports betting across the country, it gives us the opportunity to expand beyond football. Cross into baseball and into soccer. Whatever it might be, the possibilities are a lot more than they were before," he said.
Those possibilities also open up the problem for addiction.
"Immediacy that an app brings for someone that's struggling with a gambling, addiction it just escalates," said Wes Wood, director of the nonprofit Voices of Problem Gambling Recovery. "Prior to this in Oregon, we've had a table of three: time, money and location and this narrows it down to two."
As far as what you'll be able to bet on, for now, it will just be NFL games. The other major sports, and the NCAA, will only be a matter of time.