Legal iPad Sports Betting Apps
If you have an iPad and like to bet on sports, you’re probably looking for some legal iPad sports betting apps. And if so, you’ve probably had a tough time finding them. There’s a good reason for that, but they do exist. Fortunately, so do much better alternatives.
Legally, online sports betting has been a bona fide phenomenon for the last decade, and the pastime has come a long way in both public consciousness and political forum. As prohibitions to Internet-based sports betting slip into irrelevancy, new laws and legislative actions are underway to formally legitimize the practice.
But even though sports betting may be taboo to a few Americans, it is a huge industry, highly sought-after by customers and vendors. In fact, by most modern estimates, the United States sports betting scene is one of the largest industries in the world, moving an estimated $500 billion each year. Not even Apple can touch that. Luckily, you can – literally. If you have an iPad.
Current Sports Betting States
- Arizona
- Arkansas
- Colorado
- Connecticut
- Delaware
- Illinois
- Indiana
- Iowa
- Louisiana
- Michigan
- Mississippi
- Montana
- Nevada
- New Hampshire
- New Jersey
- New Mexico
- New York
- North Carolina
- North Dakota
- Oregon
- Pennsylvania
- Rhode Island
- South Dakota
- Tennessee
- Virginia
- Washington
- Washington, D.C.
- West Virginia
- Wyoming
Can I Use My iPad To Make Legal Online Sports Bets?
Yes. In almost every state across America, you can use your iPad to make legal online sports bets. Through Safari or various legal iPad sports betting apps, you can visit sportsbooks and place wagers without breaking the law. This is possible because federal laws like the Wire Act of 1961, the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act of 1992 (PASPA), and the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006 (UIGEA) all put the legal burden on parties that accept bets, not those that place them.
Since all the best online sportsbooks are based overseas, there is no way the US government can prosecute them. These companies are only required to operate under the licensing and regulation guidelines of their home countries, and they do so to the letter. The very best of these sites are Bovada, BetOnline, SportsBetting, and 5Dimes. They are all established, legitimate global enterprises, and you can feel confident doing business with them.
Can I Be Arrested For Betting On Sports Over The Internet?
It is exceedingly unlikely that you will ever face any prosecutorial action for placing online sports bets. Whether or not you use legal iPad sports betting apps or products on some other platform, gambling on sports over the Internet is legal in practice. Again, the US government is only interested in going after those who make sportsbooks and take bets. Unless you go out of your way to advertise the fact to the feds, you will not be arrested for betting on sports over the Internet.
Will I Violate Apple’s Terms Of Service If I Bet With My iPad?
Though Apple’s TOS is only 10 pages long, it’s a dense read. Section 2(f) of the iOS Software License Agreement says the following: “You agree to use the iOS Software and the Services...in compliance with all applicable laws” of your area. That’s standard boilerplate legalese, and it merely absolves Apple from responsibility for your actions; it doesn’t give Apple any right to remotely disable your iPad or seize your personal property. Plus, online sports betting is largely legal, anyways.
Will Betting On Sports Void My iPad Warranty?
Unless you’re doing it under water or in the middle of a sandstorm, then no. Whatever defects your iPad has that are covered under warranty will continue to be covered regardless of your online sports betting habits. That said, remember that when you send an iPad to Apple’s service department, they will not only have your device for a week or more, but they may have to reformat its hard drive. Always remember to save your personal data, pictures, passwords, and documents before shipping your iPad off for repair.
Where Can I Find Legal IPad Sports Betting Apps?
By Apple’s company policy, none should exist. However, the computing giant is less picky these days about what they allow on the US App Store or inside iTunes, so a few legal iPad sports betting apps have slipped past the company’s sensors over the last couple of years.
However, none of the big online sportsbooks like Bovada, BetOnline, SportsBetting, and 5Dimes has had any luck getting any official app OK’d so far. Apple shows no signs of changing their policies to allow real-money gambling apps, either. The one exception to this rule concerns Daily Fantasy Sports, as Apple currently allows paid DSF gaming apps (like DraftKings and FanDuel) in its marketplace.
Is It Safe To Use Sports Betting Apps On iPad?
Absolutely not. This cannot be stressed enough: All of the legal iPad Sports betting apps that currently exist in the App Store are fraudulent services. Most of them are simple marketing scams, existing to mine your data once the app installation gives them permission to access your private files. Best case scenario, these apps take your personal data and sell it to Internet spammers and telemarketers. Worst case scenario, you end up the victim of full-blown identity theft. Neither outcome is worth it. You should avoid any iPad sports betting apps that you find on the App Store.
What Are The Best IPad Apps For Betting On Sports?
There are none. Yes, there are several legal iPad sports betting apps available in the US App Store, but none of them is legitimate. Their developers are impossible-to-trace shell companies or defunct firms, and their claimed services and fees are suspect. Most damning of all are the overwhelmingly negative reviews you’ll find from their victims, each one outlining one way or another that their money was stolen or their winning bets nullified. Don’t think you can “push” on a 10.5-point spread? Think again. Or just think ahead and stay away from these obvious scams.
Is My Personal Information Safe With IPad Betting Apps?
No. Any legal iPad sports betting app you’ll find in iTunes or the App Store is violating Apple’s developer standards, and giving these crooks access to the personal information on your most personal device is a bad idea. Why Apple doesn’t simply crack down on obvious fraudsters is a mystery. Suffice it to say that these days, the App Store isn’t quite as “safe” as it once was, and an app’s presence there no longer indicates any sort of oversight or quality control on Apple’s end.
Why Don’t Online Sportsbooks Have Sports Betting Apps?
Unfortunately, Apple currently does not allow any official legal iPad sports betting apps in the App Store. This means that the big legal online sportsbooks you know and love (and who actually have solid reputations of backing up their services with real money) cannot offer an actual iPad app. (Which is ironic, given how Apple allows smaller, financially questionable companies – and outright shams – to sneak their wares past the approval committee.)
What Is A Web App?
The so-called “web app” is how legitimate online bookmakers get their mobile experiences out to iPad customers. In this context, a web app is an Internet-only application that doesn’t have to be installed – it’s basically a highly-optimized mobile version of a sportsbook’s website, sometimes even running in a modified browser frame. It features all the same links and information of the desktop version, but the menus and page layouts are generally different, designed around the specific screen constraints of your particular iPad (or other mobile device).
More basically, a web app is a mobile website that you save to your home screen. It presents its own launch icon amongst all your other apps, and you can tap that to go straight to your favorite legal sports betting action.
What Is The Difference Between iPad Apps And Web Apps?
The main difference between iPad Apps and web apps are that the former are locally installed and offline-capable. They aren’t just repackaged browser portals like web apps are, and they don’t necessarily need an Internet connection to work. Native apps are almost always a better, faster product than their web app equivalents.
However, there are downsides to native apps, too. For one, native apps are allowed much deeper system access to your iPad than web apps, which can let unscrupulous parties more easily harvest that data to sell to other crooks. Additionally, native iPad apps take up hard drive space, and most users don’t usually have that much to spare. Even 100 MB can make a difference when all you’ve got is a free gig or two.
Another thing you won’t get with web apps is push notifications for various moneyline changes and new odds posts, which some users might find useful. (Since you probably turn notifications off, though, this shouldn’t be a big deal.) Finally, native apps have to be structurally updated via a process that requires developers to submit each new build to Apple’s approval team. This means that any user interface adjustments take that much longer to be released or to be repaired. In this regard, legal iPad sports betting apps are at a distinct disadvantage to their web app counterparts.
Are Web Apps Faster Than Regular iPad Apps?
As far as content delivery is concerned (which is probably the chief consideration when it comes to sportsbooks, given the frequency with which moneylines and spreads can change), web apps are just as fast as regular iPad apps. However, because everything in a web app is web-based, the responsiveness of the product suffers in comparison to native offerings. This, more than anything else, is the main downfall of web apps – they’re just generally slower to navigate and less aesthetically pleasing than apps that run at the system level. They don’t “feel” as good.
Can I Just Use Safari Instead Of Web Apps?
Certainly. In a purely technical, literal sense, Safari is the best and safest of all the legal iPad sports betting apps out there. As an Internet browser, of course, it can pretty much be any kind of app you want. So if you’d rather just use Safari for your all of your gambling, it’s as simple as visiting your favorite sportsbook – just like you’d do on your home computer. You don’t even have to use their mobile layout if you don’t want to, and unlike the iPhone, the iPad is actually large enough to let you see all the small text you normally get in desktop mode.
The main difference between a web app and just using your browser is one of convenience. The web app is just one tap away, whereas getting to a given sportsbook through your browser might require three or four taps. It doesn’t seem like much, but when some odds are only on the board for a few seconds before changing, a little extra quickness can make you some serious money.
How To Install Legal Sports Betting Web Apps On Your iPad
Whereas legal iPad sports betting apps must be downloaded from iTunes or the App Store and then installed to your system, sports betting web apps are essentially user-created. You can make a web app out of almost any website you want, and it’s really easy. Lots of folks use this process as glorified browser bookmarking, and that’s what the big sportsbooks are counting on here – they’ve simply optimized an interface that lends itself to immediate action.
To create a web app version of your favorite online sportsbook, all you need to do is visit its mobile website. You can then select any page therein to be your launching point. If you frequently bet on the NFL, for example, you can choose the main NFL moneylines page as your web app origin. You could also choose your profile page, the site’s main news feed, its blog roll, and so on.
Once you’ve chosen your spot, look at the browser bar in Safari. Find the icon that looks like a square with an arrow rising out of it, tap that, and select “Add to Home Screen.” You’ll be given the option to name the web app whatever you want, and then you’ll be shown its icon among all your other apps. That’s it. Now, any time you want to place a quick bet, you can tap on the web app and go straight to the source. On iPad, you can even turn on full-screen mode inside Safari, giving the web app an even more polished look.
Are iPad Web Apps Safe To Use For Online Sports Betting?
If you are using a legitimate, trusted Internet sportsbook, then iPad web apps are perfectly safe to use for online sports betting. In fact, due to the inherent security benefits of iOS compared against platforms like Windows and Android, your iPad is probably the safest possible computer to use for legal online sports betting. Historically, Apple’s mobile devices have been far less susceptible to general hacking attacks than their competitors, which is one of the few true benefits of iOS’ closed ecosystem.
Can My iPad Get A Virus From A Web App?
Viruses are not particularly common on devices that run Apple’s mobile operating system, so your iPad is fairly resistant to the trend. In other words, you almost certainly won’t get a virus from a sports betting web app. (For that matter, you probably wouldn’t get one from a legal iPad sports betting app, either, albeit you should always stick to web apps as opposed to whatever shady garbage you’ll find on the App Store).
A word of warning: As more and more people use mobile Apple devices, more and more hackers and security firms are digging up new ways to hack and infect them. It may be only a matter of time before web apps as a concept are compromised, if only because they aren’t walled off from the larger Internet. Still, that day hasn’t come yet, and it doesn’t seem like it’ll be here anytime soon.
Can Sports Betting Web Apps Ruin My iPad
As a rule, mobile websites – and by extension, web apps – will not ruin your iPad. No reputable online sportsbook will flood you with system-crashing pop-ups, and it’s not in these companies’ interests to have you financially fleeced. Remember, they want you to spend your money gambling on their sports betting products, not sitting idly by as some random malware victim on the Internet. Sportsbooks like Bovada, BetOnline, SportsBetting, and 5Dimes are, in many respects, home to some of the safest websites on the planet. You can rest assured that their mobile sports betting portals will do right by you and your iPad both.
