The National Football League has come out with a statement that reiterates its strong opposition to legal sports betting across the United States. The Commissioner of the NFL, Roger Goodell told a press conference this week that the League was still concerned that allowing Americans to bet on the game could compromise the sport’s integrity.
“I think we still strongly oppose legalized sports gambling,” Goodell said in Arizona this week. “The integrity of our game is No.1; we will not compromise on that.”
Goodell is opposed to the current movement by individual states to push for legislation to legalize and regulate their own gambling industries and to push for changes to current federal laws that ban sports betting. Among the states seeking to overturn current federal legislation include New Jersey, New York, Michigan and South Carolina.
The NFL Commissioner wants to see the status quo maintained and believes that allowing individual states to regulate their own sports betting industries would threaten the current system.
“That is a major risk for us; I think we have to make sure that we continue to stay focused on making sure that everyone has full confidence that what you see on the field is not influenced by any outside factors,” said Goodell.
Goodell also addressed the fact that the Oakland Raiders have relocated to Las Vegas, Nevada and said that the team has no attachment to any gambling enterprise in the US gambling mecca. He was asked by a reporter if the National Football League would request that all Las Vegas casinos and licensed bookmakers withdraw their betting markets on Raiders matches but he did not reply to that question directly.
“We’ll study it further, but I think at this point in time that’s not our position,” he said.
Many have been harboring hopes that the NFL has started to change its position on sports betting after approving the team’s move to Las Vegas, but Goodell’s comments, for the meantime, have them doubting that we’ll see any major changes for now.
The pro-legalized sports betting group, the American Gaming Association commented on the news that the NFL was allowing the Raiders to move to Vegas. “We congratulate the Raiders and the National Football League on today’s historic decision to place a team in Las Vegas”, said Geoff Freeman, the president and chief executive officer of the AGA.
