The rules surrounding gambling and professional sports used to be so strict that two of the most famous baseball players, Mickey Mantle and Willie Mays were once banned from baseball just for shaking the hands of gamblers in Atlantic City. This kind of “zero tolerance” policy has been a tenant of sports leagues since their inception, but the rules are getting more and more lax in this new century.
Why? Because, as the Standard recently profiled in depth, sports leagues are starting to realize that it is impossible to fight gambling, especially with the internet now playing a role, and that if they sanction it, they can actually make money off of it.
The NBA was the first league to take the step towards condoning gambling, by partnering with FanDuel.
Famously, NBA Commissioner Adam Silver wrote in the New York Times: “There is an obvious appetite among sports fans for a safe and legal way to wager on professional sporting events. I believe that sports betting should be brought out of the underground and into the sunlight where it can be appropriately monitored and regulated.”
This can partially be attributed to the popularity of fantasy sports, which allows fans to pay real money to play in tournaments and other events, opening the eyes of the leagues to a potential money-making situation.
“Gambling has increasingly become a popular and accepted form of entertainment in the United States,” Silver explains. “In light of these domestic and global trends, the laws on sports betting should be changed.”
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