A recent article that appeared on the ESPN website traces the changing attitudes towards sports betting in the United States. David Purdham, in his piece entitled Inside How Sports Betting went Mainstream, shows how it has been a long process to reach the point where the Supreme Court ruled to strike down the 1992 Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act. For the first time in 26 years, legal sports betting is not limited primarily to Las Vegas.
Purdham says that it was “stiff opposition from the influential sports leagues, ties to the mob and decades of scandals” which “tattooed a stigma on sports betting than other forms of gambling never had to overcome.” He also said that religious objections and concerns of addition saw the country view betting as a threat to the integrity of American sports.
However, in the past five years, there has been a sudden sea of change, with the acceptance of sports betting by society and, more importantly, the sports leagues. Many factors played a part in this change of attitudes, from the rise of prominence of daily fantasy sports betting, to pressure from the media and what Purdham terms “some new forward-thinking commissioners.”
The culmination of this softening from the opposition was the press conference held between the commissioner of the National Basketball Association and the CEO of MGM to make the latter the exclusive gaming partner of the NBA and WNBA. The NBA thus became the first major US sports league to partner with a sportsbook operator. This deal, incidentally, is a three year partnership and is said to be worth at least $25 million.
The change began sometime in 2006 when Adam Silver, who was then deputy commissioner of the NBA, started to publicly question if it was the right thing to force the millions of dollars being wagered on US sports into the black market. In 2014, Silver wrote in an op-ed that “sports betting should be brought out of the underground and into the sunlight, where it can be appropriately monitored and regulated.” Other sports leagues soon followed suit after this “watershed moment for sports betting”, as Silver’s op-ed became known as.
Following the US ruling, individual states are moving swiftly forward to adopt sports betting legislation. Delaware, New Jersey and Mississippi have already done so, while West Virginia hopes to be up and running by the start of the NFL season. 14 other states have introduced sports betting legislation, and three states – New York, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island – have already lined up sports betting laws.
“It’s happening fast,” concludes Purdham, “whether America accepts it or not.”
