The National Basketball Association has made the dramatic decision to lobby the US Congress to regulate sports betting in the United States. Up until now, the NBA has gone according to the policy of offering quiet support of a federal law allowing sports betting, but has refrained from advocating it outright up until now.
The turnaround came with an announcement by the vice-president and assistant general counsel of the basketball association, Dan Spillane when he spoke at the Sports Betting USA Conference in New York. Spillane said that the NBA has decided to lobby Congress for a federal legal framework, and already has advisors in Washington DC. The NBA is also working together with Adam silver, its own commissioner, who has been more outspoken about his support for legalized sports betting.
Silver has openly said that he honestly believes that sports betting will be legal in the United States within the next few years and it is his opinion which is said to have “jump-started” the NBA’s change of policy.
It is not by chance that the NBA has decided to make its new policy public at this time. The Supreme Court is set to hear an appeal by New Jersey to overturn the federal Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (PASPA) of 1992, which at present prohibits all states, bar four, to sponsor, license or promote gambling based on games that are played by amateur or professional athletes (such as the NBA).
New Jersey has been battling this prohibition for years, and it has finally received an excellent opportunity to at least allow its own administration to opt out of PASPA. Many believe that a positive ruling for the Garden State will set a precedent for many other states to introduce regulated and legalized sports betting regimes of their own.
New Jersey will have its day in court at the beginning of December.
The NBA is not the only body to express its support for new federal laws. The commissioner of the North American Major League Soccer (MLB), Don Garber, was quoted recently as saying that he was a big believer that sports betting legalization was going to eventually happen and, as such, the league may as well be “in front of it”.
“I think there are great values to our tax revenues to be able to do that,” he said. “I don’t think we can stop it, so maybe we’d even lead the charge.”
He said that gambling on games was “part of the DNA of football” all across the globe.
