NBA Commissioner Adam Silver's Stance on Sports Betting

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00:00Speaking of positive calls, the commissioner had one when he met with the media ahead of

00:07the upcoming NBA season on sports betting.

00:09You never know how these things are going to go, Matt, but there are significant partnerships

00:13with the sports betting operators and the NBA.

00:16And although Adam Silver, the commissioner of the NBA, had said in the past that there

00:19was some concern with player props, didn't seem like there were any concerns going into

00:24this season, unless I read it wrong.

00:26You tell me.

00:27No, you know what?

00:28Look, obviously the John Tay Porter issue, when he touched on that, he said that was

00:31a cardinal sin.

00:33And you just hope that those are really, really limited issues, right?

00:37But you can't just look at the bad.

00:38You have to look at the good.

00:40And this is kind of what Adam Silver's been saying all along.

00:44Ten years ago, in November of 2014, he wrote this op-ed for the New York Times that said

00:50why sports betting should be legal.

00:53And basically, he was the only one in professional sports at that time saying that they should

00:58legalize it.

00:59The tune from every other sport was, well, it's going to impact the integrity.

01:04We don't know how we're going to deal with it.

01:05All this kind of stuff.

01:06And Adam Silver was much more rational.

01:09He said, look, the Internet's a thing, people, and they can bet online already if they want

01:14to.

01:15So why wouldn't we want to have it regulated?

01:17And why wouldn't we at least want to have our eyes on what we can have our eyes on to

01:22take care of this and make sure everything's going the right way?

01:26And, you know, he still said that he would prefer a federal regulation for selfish

01:32reasons, it seems. He said that it would simply be easier for the NBA at that point to not

01:36have to deal with the state by state changes.

01:39But obviously, he said that he could see the appeal for the states to keep it state by

01:44state so they can they can compete on tax rate and all that kind of stuff.

01:48The other thing that I thought was really interesting to see him say when he had this

01:53interview with the Associated Press, he said that it's never really been about revenue

01:57for the NBA.

01:58And if you remember a little thing called the integrity fee, Craig, the integrity fee

02:03was something that these leagues were trying to get tacked on to, like every bet placed

02:07in a state so they could get a little bit of revenue.

02:09And that fell out of favor pretty quickly.

02:13And obviously, we know that these leagues have signed, you know, big deals with these

02:18sports books to be official partners and this and that.

02:21But he said the biggest deal to them has been the engagement.

02:24And, you know, when you think about other states, you think about Missouri and how the

02:28professional teams are leading the call in Missouri to get sports betting legalized.

02:32They see the same thing.

02:33They just want to be able to engage with their fans on another level.

02:38And and Adam Silver says that's been great.

02:40Now, I thought this was an interesting quote, though.

02:43He wasn't really for or against sports betting in this.

02:47He says, I put it in the category of other things in society.

02:50I wouldn't criminalize them.

02:52But on the other hand, you have to heavily regulate them because if there's not guard

02:56rails, people will run afoul and create issues, problems for themselves, potentially for

03:01their families or for operations like us, which I think is totally fair.

03:05So interesting to see where he stands 10 years on from this.

03:10But, man, he was it was it was ground shaking when he came out with this 10 years ago.

03:15Craig, I was just new to the gambling industry.

03:17People couldn't believe that he would come out in an op ed and say it that bluntly.

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