Once thought of as a shadowy, backroom form of wagering best left to bookies, sports gambling has long been a part of the mainstream in Nevada.

In Las Vegas casinos, massive sport lounges and big-screen plasma televisions greet gamblers who are betting on everything from NHL games to Wimbledon.

"The shady image of sports betting goes back to boxing matches being fixed and a fighter potentially throwing the fight," says Ivan Sack, former editor of Canadian Gaming News, and an industry analyst.

Sack says news that the provincial government is considering getting into the sports gambling arena isn't a surprise, given the economic downturn in the casino industry.

"Casinos across North America are trading at all-time lows and revenues are being hurt. Sports gambling is something that's been around for years, but we've refused to do it in the past," says Sack.

Canadian border casinos are especially hard hit.

Americans are making far fewer single-day car trips to Canada, hitting 730,000 in March, compared to 2.3 million in March 2001, according to Statistics Canada.

The high Canadian dollar, along with increased border security and a weak American economy, is contributing to the weakness in casino revenues, says Sack.

"There is too much capacity for the market with two casinos in Niagara and a third in New York. And in Windsor you have a depressed auto industry in (nearby) Detroit.

"This looks like an attempt to broaden the gaming market," says Sack.

In addition to legal gambling at casinos, there is a big pool of illegal gambling in the online universe, which has captured the greatest market share.

According to U.S.-based Christiansen Capital Advisors LLC, $12 billion was spent on online gambling in 2005, with more than one-third of that, or $4.3 billion, spent on sports gambling. By 2010, online gambling revenues are forecast to hit $24.5 billion – with potentially one-third of that going to sports gambling.

Placing sports gambling in casinos can be lucrative. In Nevada, about $100 million was wagered on the last Super Bowl alone.

Ontario, meanwhile, does have a form of sports gambling, but unlike Nevada, it is illegal to bet on just one outcome.

Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corp. has sports booths set up in casinos in Windsor and Niagara Falls, but betters must wager on several separate outcomes (say three football games, or a football game, hockey game and a baseball game) in order to place their bets.

"It's an important part of what we do," says OLG spokesperson Don Pister.

Sports wagering, which includes the OLG's Pro-Line lottery as well as casino lounges, brought in $257 million in the 2006 to 2007 fiscal year, according to OLG.

That is still only a small part of OLG's revenues of more than $6 billion, but Pister says sports lotteries tend to attract a demographic of sports enthusiasts who may not normally be attracted to other lotteries.