Sports & Gambling; The Perfect Couple

Sports and gambling share a reputation for not being as clean as they each claim, but does that mean they should get together?

The black pall that hangs over the whole issue of sports betting is sports betting. Like a man with a past he’s unable to shake off wherever he goes, sports betting in the US drags with it a collection of baggage so large it would cause a Hollywood celebrity’s entourage to go into melt down. Worse still it is now an entirely two way street. Gambling has always had a slightly disreputable nature, but these days professional sports aren’t coming to the table pure as the driven snow, more like snow that has been driven over by a linebacker on drugs going home to beat his wife.

Obviously in both cases the media and popular culture can be accused of accentuating the sensational aspects, dwelling on the wrong-doing, fixating on the failures, the lapses, the moments of poor judgment. Be it the movies that represent Las Vegas as a city where every car trunk has a body in it and every bag is illicit cash, or the news reports almost ecstatically announcing yet another drug scandal and investigation, neither sports nor gambling has escaped negative portrayal, but there’s a good reason for that, neither one is guilt free.

The intersection between these two activities in the past has been scandalous. Point-shaving, match-fixing, bribery, corruption, not only did all these plague certain sports in the past, but so bad was it that even those who like to bet on sports in the US became disgusted. The perceived perversion of what many fans saw as sacrosanct left them to desert in droves, and the corruption of the players themselves was only made worse when officials were found to be influencing results due to the interests of gamblers who liked a great deal more certainty in their wagers than any of us deserve.

Like a couple of drunks at the end of a party who have failed to find anyone else to go home with it would seem, at long last, as the tainted worlds of gambling and professional sports might finally get it together as they stagger away into an uncertain future. Gambling in the US is at a pivot point as casino saturation reaches a peak and online gambling faces powerful opposition, it could do with the boost of legalized sports gambling, and professional sports is being beaten out for TV ratings by The Walking Dumb and needs an injection of engagement with the fans that gambling could well provide.

League Opposition Cracks

Of course the various leagues, NHL, NFL, NBA, have always been opposed to sports gambling, they’ve said so, lots, no really, honest, promise they don’t like it…yeah. It’s hard to believe that sort of position when they make substantial investments in fantasy league companies that are just one more game of chance. The wholly disingenuous stance of professional sports has been that whilst they do indeed make sure everyone is aware of the odds, the stats, the past results, that none of that is for gamblers, it’s just for football fans that are into spreadsheets.

This however all changed recently when the NBA Commissioner, Adam Silver, began to tentatively, then quite directly, call for a change in attitudes and a legalization of sports gambling. The reaction was, as you might imagine, quite varied. Some commentators saw this as a shrewd political move timed to head off negative publicity over a labor strike, others saw it as a hedonistic ruination of basketball’s leadership, with some even claiming that crowds would chant for the spread not their team.

Common Sense Commissioner Silver

• NBA boss wants legalized sports gambling
• Only for professional leagues
• Mobile betting already legal in some countries

This already happens. Sports betting might not be legal in the US but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist, the denial of this fact is at the base of the flaw the sporting bodies position has been built upon. The influence they fear already exists, we’ve seen plenty of evidence for that, in every sport from basketball through soccer to even the staid and hallowed world of cricket. The internet age not only globalized gambling but the influence of gambling, and US gambling laws take no account of this. 

The progressive nature of Mr. Silver’s comments need have no political motive, nor be a commercially based stratagem, they stand on the merit of simply being wholly more realistic than any of the competing views. He even had the good sense to underline that it would be professional sports alone upon which cash could be wagered, leaving the college kids safely out of the picture, aswaging at least one criticism before it arose. This more realpolitik approach was a tentative step, an op ed piece in a newspaper doesn’t change the world alone, but it might be the snowball that starts an avalanche.

Heaven Or Hell Awaits Us

Where this may end is portrayed either as a harmonious connection between sports, gambling and the fans, or as a dystopian nightmare of rigged games and repeated scandals. The chances are, of course, that it will neither be one extreme nor the other. The proponents and opponents alike paint their counterparts with bad grace, and themselves as if angels either defending individual liberty or the morals and values of the nation, depending which side their wings and harp reside today, but not for a moment realistically think about the impact of neither side getting all they want.

When Adam Silver was gambling news of his opinions wouldn’t end his career in a blaze of media outrage and pearl clutching moralistas he was presenting the facts without the emotion, and thus far the response has been favorable, there were no pitch forks and flaming torches, just a few people with a vested interest in the status quo making obsequious remarks on the bottom half of the internet. This less than hostile attitude from commentators, in the main, will not have been lost on the leaderships of other professional sports.

Whether they follow Silver’s lead is a different question. The forces ranged against legalized sports gambling take time to mobilize but will in due course come to oppose this new enemy in their war on fun and enjoyment. The anti-gambling fanatics joining forces with the competitors to sports gambling (other means of gambling oddly enough) in an unholy piece of political cynicism that we can see played out in New Jersey even now, where Chris Christie seeks to legalize sports gambling in his state in efforts to bolster its economy and his chances of the White House.

The decision in New Jersey and the response to what Mr. Silver has sensibly said may well tip the balance in what has been a long slow build up of market forces and prevailing circumstance towards the adoption of nationwide sports gambling in the United States. It may be infrequent that common sense wins out in this somewhat bizarre modern world of ours, but in this case there seems too few reasons not to finally accept the inevitable and face facts not fears.