Despite the Jontay Porter betting scandal that embroiled the NBA in the spring, league commissioner Adam Silver has no regrets about being one of the first leaders in American professional sports to advocate for betting to be legal outside Nevada.
Silver began lobbying for more legalized betting a decade ago and penned an opinion piece for the New York Times titled “Legalize and Regulate Sports Betting,” expressing his views on the issue. That became a reality in 2018 when the Supreme Court overturned the virtual federal ban on most betting outside Nevada.
“I’d say when it comes to sports betting, I certainly don’t regret writing that op-ed piece and being in favor of legalized sports betting,” Silver recently told ESPN. “I still think you can’t turn the clock back. I think, as I said at the time, with the advent of the internet, widely available sports betting online… that we had to deal directly with technology and recognize that if we don’t legalize sports betting, people are going to find ways to do it illegally.”
Controversies Don’t Sway Support
The state of New Jersey led the charge to repeal the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (PASPA), which became law in 1992. Since then, the country has seen 39 states, including Washington D.C. and Puerto Rico, enact some form of legalized sports wagering. That has brought billions of dollars in wagers and has helped fuel record gambling revenue across the country.
Expansion hasn’t come without some issues along the way, however. Most professional leagues, as well as college sports, have dealt with betting scandals over the last few years. That included Toronto Raptors forward Jontay Porter getting banned for life from the NBA earlier this year and pleading guilty in federal court in July to conspiracy to commit wire fraud as part of a bet-fixing scheme.
Despite that, Silver remains undeterred in his support of bringing regulated betting into the pro sports landscape. He now favors seeing the federal government get involved in the industry.
“I was in favor of a federal framework for sports betting,” he said. “I still am. I still think that the hodgepodge of state by state, it makes it more difficult for the league to administer it. I think it creates competition, understandably, among states to get – just think New York, New Jersey or a situation like that where you’re both competing for the same customer so you can compete on tax rates and other things and a regulatory framework.
“I think that on the downsides of sports betting, they certainly exist, and I think we have to pay a lot of attention to that. I think where we’re hearing it in multiple categories, certainly you see incidents of underaged people betting. We have to pay a lot of attention to that, what’s potentially going on at college campuses, certainly people betting over their heads.”