Former NBA Commissioner David Stern (left) discusses sports gambling with American Gaming Association CEO Geoff Freeman at the Global Gaming Expo in Las Vegas. (Getty Images)
If you’ve ever been to a casino, you’ve noted the ample retirees on the floor, dropping their pensions one penny at a time into the slot machines. You just didn’t expect to see David Stern among them.
In a reversal from his previous stance on the matter, the former NBA commissioner came out in favor of state-sponsored gambling at the American Gaming Association’s Global Gaming Expo in Las Vegas.
“You wind up with a proposition that says there is this legal gaming, but there’s also an enormous amount that is wagered,” Stern told ESPN.com’s David Purdum on Thursday. “That amount is not regulated, not taxed, and the profits go to unsavory causes, and that’s a good thing to take a look at.”
After supporting the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act of 1992, which limited the vast majority of government-regulated sports gambling to Nevada, and arguing as recently as 2012 that, “The NBA cannot be compensated in damages for the harm that sports gambling poses to the fundamental bonds of loyalty and devotion between fans and teams,” Stern told ESPN.com he’s come around on allowing states and professional sports leagues the option of participating in legalized gambling, especially given the increased popularity of daily fantasy sports across the country.
“Whatever barrier perhaps existed is gone,” he added. “So, to me, if they’re going to be doing daily fantasy, you might as well legalize gambling.”
It’s not as though the NBA and Vegas have never crossed paths. The city hosted the 2007 NBA All-Star Game and continues to be the site of the league’s highest-profile summer league. But the gambling scandal involving NBA referee Tim Donaghy probably didn’t help soften Stern’s stance on the issue.
Perhaps some of Stern’s newfound philosophy can be attributed to the man who replaced him as NBA commissioner. Soon after taking over the position in 2014, Adam Silver told a crowd at New York’s Bloomberg Sports Business Summit, “It’s inevitable that, if all these states are broke, that there will be legalized sports betting in more states than Nevada and we will ultimately participate in that.”
In 2015, Silver penned a New York Times op-ed entitled, “Legalize and Regulate Sports Betting,” in which he argued, “Congress should adopt a federal framework that allows states to authorize betting on professional sports, subject to strict regulatory requirements and technological safeguards.”
Essentially, Stern outlined the same argument at the Global Gaming Expo, estimating sports gambling will be legalized in the U.S. within 5-10 years. Although, he didn’t say how much he would bet on that.
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