The word spread quickly in the afterlife. I hear Bob Martin had tears in his basset hound eyes.

Laughing Sid Wyman let loose a roar that thundered through the Dunes. The Hunchback and Crippled Julius sat up straight for the first time in, well, maybe ever. Marty the Jew knew, and Joey Boston did, too, and of course they couldn’t wait to tell Lefty Rosenthal. Frankie Masterana, Proctor Hawkins, Liver Lips Gordon and old Ray Wax all had the skinny from somewhere out beyond the stars.

They hadn’t lived to see it, but their sources were solid: The United States Supreme Court had struck down the prohibition on single-game sports betting outside Nevada. The cuffs were finally coming off. The gaming industry’s last pariah activity was finally going the way of other prohibitions.

Like most other attempts to corral American morality, the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act of 1992 had many starched collars in its congressional corner when it became law. Written partly in response to sports-fixing cases that had nothing to do with legalized bookmaking, PASPA’s constitutionality was suspect from the start. But back then, few people outside Nevada advocated for bookmaking and sports betting.

Nevada’s bookmakers didn’t mind the law because their action was grandfathered. Illegal bookmakers were fine with it, too, because the one thing they didn’t want was a country bustling with competition in the form of licensed and regulated sports betting.

“It sounds preposterous to me,” longtime Las Vegas sports book boss Art Manteris told me nearly a quarter century ago. “Are they actually saying that by making a law they’re going to stop it? I don’t think that’s what they’re thinking. There’s absolutely no question in my mind that privately the NFL and NBA know that without gambling their revenues would diminish drastically. If I was an illegal bookmaker, that law would clearly be the best thing that would happen to my business. For the foreseeable future, legalized sports betting will be unique to Nevada.”

It took more than 25 years, but Manteris’ future bet paid off. Common sense has finally prevailed.

Outside the halls of the Supreme Court, where the state of New Jersey prevailed in its challenge of PASPA, repeal is also possible because the professional sports leagues, led by the NBA, at last are acknowledging sports betting’s relationship to the popularity of the games. And the leagues smell possible revenue sources. After living in denial and dragging their feet for decades, other states have come to the conclusion that, while far from ideal, it makes more sense to manage regulated bookmaking than it does to pretend that prohibition is effective.

This is a new chapter in gambling history. Although they seldom get much credit, bookmakers helped build Las Vegas. From the days when Benny Siegel managed the race wire, to the arrival of his brainy successor Gus Greenbaum, to the presence of the affable Wyman, and especially the efforts of the kings of downtown Jackie Gaughan and Mel Exber, bookmaking played a huge role in shaping the gaming industry. Illegal bookmaking’s reputation was so notorious and mob-associated in so many places that for years even Nevada’s legal bookmakers had to operate in separate buildings outside casinos. Bookmakers were buffeted between organized crime and law enforcement. They took their lumps no matter which way they turned.

Bob Martin, the Babe Ruth of oddsmaking, had booked bets since his New York youth. He thrived in every atmosphere, and in Las Vegas was nationally recognized and beloved. But even he was sidelined by a federal pinch.

In an interview with me more than two decades ago for the book, “The Players The Men Who Made Las Vegas,” Martin knocked the legal system that put bookmakers in jail and elected thieves to high office.

When it came to busting the sportsmen, Martin said, “It wasn’t a hard call to make. Nobody’s going to shoot at them (the officers.) They can say it’s an $80 million ring. It might have been $500,000, but automatically it’s $80 million. But how much has prosecution cost the government? How successful has it been? How much has bookmaking gone down?”

Not a bit. In fact, the expansion of sports and the arrival of the Internet helped illegal bookmaking explode into a racket that, according to informed estimates, generates approximately $150 billion annually.

Legalizing sports betting won’t eliminate the illegal activity, but it will change a lot of it and generate revenue in the process. In an America that offers state-sanctioned lotteries -- one of the great hustles of the poor and ignorant of all time -- legalizing bookmaking makes pretty good sense.

Up in the big sports book in the sky, the bookmaking wise guys of Vegas past are finally getting the last laugh.

John L. Smith is a longtime Las Vegas journalist and author. Contact him at [email protected]. On Twitter: @jlnevadasmith.