The popularity of online gambling, especially among young men, has addiction researchers worried in New York, where mobile sports betting has surpassed casino gambling as the primary reason for calls to the state’s helpline.
Sports gambling is just terrible for everyone except the bloodsuckers that run it. Sports teams don’t want it because it incentivizes cheating / rigging games. Personal bankruptcy and domestic abuse skyrocket when people lose money they can’t afford to lose. Now the apps feed an unstable addiction literally all day long.
Thanks to the Supreme Court for pulling a bullshit ruling out of their collective asses in 2018 that makes everything worse for average Americans.
Shit, I don’t even gamble and I’m just sick of their logos and ads all over every thing when I watch a game. Used to be they had “Gambling Prohibited” up around the stadium, now they may as well own the teams.
Sports teams don’t want it because it incentivizes cheating / rigging games.
this isn’t true generally speaking. The reasoning they give is that gambling has always been there to incentivize cheating/rigging, but at least now it’s out in the open and easier to track. This is a quote from the commissioner of the NBA after an incident last year:
“I mean, this is not new that there’s unsavory behavior, even illegal behavior, around sports betting,” Silver said. “I guess my point is that to the extent it’s going to exist, if you have a regulated environment, you’re going to have a better chance of detecting it than you would if all the bets were placed illegally.”
Sports leagues are tripping over themselves expanding into Las Vegas. Some team owners have their own sportsbooks right in the stadium, for example ted leonsis in DC. The owners of the Dallas Mavericks own the Sands casinos and have been spending millions lobbying to legalize gambling in Texas. (edit: I see their efforts recently failed, but the point is they clearly want gambling.)
Some individual players have spoken out against sports betting and if they were the majority they could take it up as an issue in collective bargaining. NBA players did in the last CBA, except they went in the opposite direction; they negotiated for the ability to endorse and invest in gambling companies themselves. So clearly the majority of players are happy to take bigger contracts, endorsements, etc despite the nuisance it causes them.
and to be clear I agree it’s awful, i am just explaining how i observed them deal with the issue over the last 7 years or whatever. I actually recently stopped watching sports, and sports betting was a contributing factor to that decision.
The difference is that black market gambling is distributed. It means that there are fewer protections for people who engage in it but more people profiting from it.
But legalization just means most of the action is controlled by a handful of corporations, and the government is involved in protecting the flow of money, of which they get a cut.
There’s also the issue of volume, more betting volume could mean more opportunity for corruption. I don’t have numbers but i’m guessing there is a lot more betting now that it’s legal, with ads and sponsorships constantly in your face, and easily accessible with phone apps and sportsbooks. But i have not seen any officially expressed concern about that aspect from any league representatives, only spin that it’s better legalized and regulated.
The overall point is that sports leagues definitely do want sports betting. more engagement, ad sales, endorsements, and they can even get in on the action directly by ownership or investments.
Sports gambling is just terrible for everyone except the bloodsuckers that run it. Sports teams don’t want it because it incentivizes cheating / rigging games. Personal bankruptcy and domestic abuse skyrocket when people lose money they can’t afford to lose. Now the apps feed an unstable addiction literally all day long.
Thanks to the Supreme Court for pulling a bullshit ruling out of their collective asses in 2018 that makes everything worse for average Americans.
Shit, I don’t even gamble and I’m just sick of their logos and ads all over every thing when I watch a game. Used to be they had “Gambling Prohibited” up around the stadium, now they may as well own the teams.
I agree with most of what you’re saying, but I don’t think gambling should be illegal. That’s the tough thing.
this isn’t true generally speaking. The reasoning they give is that gambling has always been there to incentivize cheating/rigging, but at least now it’s out in the open and easier to track. This is a quote from the commissioner of the NBA after an incident last year:
Sports leagues are tripping over themselves expanding into Las Vegas. Some team owners have their own sportsbooks right in the stadium, for example ted leonsis in DC. The owners of the Dallas Mavericks own the Sands casinos and have been spending millions lobbying to legalize gambling in Texas. (edit: I see their efforts recently failed, but the point is they clearly want gambling.)
Some individual players have spoken out against sports betting and if they were the majority they could take it up as an issue in collective bargaining. NBA players did in the last CBA, except they went in the opposite direction; they negotiated for the ability to endorse and invest in gambling companies themselves. So clearly the majority of players are happy to take bigger contracts, endorsements, etc despite the nuisance it causes them.
and to be clear I agree it’s awful, i am just explaining how i observed them deal with the issue over the last 7 years or whatever. I actually recently stopped watching sports, and sports betting was a contributing factor to that decision.
The difference is that black market gambling is distributed. It means that there are fewer protections for people who engage in it but more people profiting from it.
But legalization just means most of the action is controlled by a handful of corporations, and the government is involved in protecting the flow of money, of which they get a cut.
There’s also the issue of volume, more betting volume could mean more opportunity for corruption. I don’t have numbers but i’m guessing there is a lot more betting now that it’s legal, with ads and sponsorships constantly in your face, and easily accessible with phone apps and sportsbooks. But i have not seen any officially expressed concern about that aspect from any league representatives, only spin that it’s better legalized and regulated.
The overall point is that sports leagues definitely do want sports betting. more engagement, ad sales, endorsements, and they can even get in on the action directly by ownership or investments.
“regulated” doing a lot of heavy lifting