For years, the professional sports leagues in the United States, as well as the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), have lived a life of hypocrisy, opposing legalized sports betting at every turn, despite the fact that sports betting has clearly increased interest in their games and increased the size of the leagues’ wallets. Somehow, though, they have been fully onboard with fantasy sports (just another form of sports betting), partially evidenced by carve-outs fantasy sports have received in anti-gambling legislation. Last week, though, something interesting happened: National Basketball Association (NBA) Commissioner Adam Silver announced his support for the legalization of sports wagering in the United States.
Last Thursday, the New York Times published an op-ed by Silver in which he expressed his desire for sports betting to finally become legalized and regulated in the States. He began his piece by stating that the leagues have been against sports betting and supported the passage of the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (PASPA) in 1992. PASPA outlawed sports wagering in all but four states: Nevada, Oregon, Montana, and Delaware. Since then, the leagues have fought attempts to legalize sports betting, citing PASPA. Traditionally, their argument against the form of entertainment is that it threatens the integrity of the sport. While there have certainly been instances where players or referees have influenced games because of gambling interests, those cases are rare and are not usually of great consequence. The leagues, though, have always tried to make us believe that the legalization of sports wagering would bring their sports to their knees. Never mind that it has been legal in Europe and everything has been fine there or that there is plenty of “illegal” sports betting in the U.S. and the leagues are still thriving.
In the op-ed, Silver admits that sports betting is here to stay, whether one likes it or not, so it is time to embrace it:
There is an obvious appetite among sports fans for a safe and legal way to wager on professional sporting events. Mainstream media outlets regularly publish sports betting lines and point spreads. Voters in New Jersey overwhelmingly voiced their support for legal sports betting in a 2011 referendum. Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey recently signed a bill authorizing sports betting at local casinos and horse racetracks, a law the N.B.A. and other leagues have opposed — and a federal court has blocked — because it violates Paspa.
Outside of the United States, sports betting and other forms of gambling are popular, widely legal and subject to regulation. In England, for example, a sports bet can be placed on a smartphone, at a stadium kiosk or even using a television remote control.
In light of these domestic and global trends, the laws on sports betting should be changed. Congress should adopt a federal framework that allows states to authorize betting on professional sports, subject to strict regulatory requirements and technological safeguards.
None of the safeguards Silver calls for are surprising: “mandatory monitoring and reporting of unusual betting-line movements; a licensing protocol to ensure betting operators are legitimate; minimum-age verification measures; geo-blocking technology to ensure betting is available only where it is legal; mechanisms to identify and exclude people with gambling problems; and education about responsible gaming.”
Those things are all already in place in the three states – Nevada, Delaware, and New Jersey – where online gambling is legal, except for the reporting of unusual betting line movements, which is a sports betting-specific safeguard.
This is not the first time Adam Silver has expressed his interest in bringing sports betting into the light of day. He gave a speech on the topic at the Bloomberg Sports Business Summit in September, but this op-ed will no doubt reach a much larger audience.