All things sports and state gambling related. May end up R & P, but not sure.
I do not like how almost every single TV sporting event is now going all in on Gambling, especially ESPN, and I think this is going to lead to some massive scandals.
Just a start:
And the article you linked and the news that it is covering has absolutely nothing to do with sports gambling.
(BTW, full disclosure: I work for a company that makes some income from subscription revenue from sports wagerers who purchase our game pick data.)
You think sports betting will end badly? Lets ask Pete
And it should be noted: Pete got caught. Mostly, because Pete was technically working outside of betting regulations for his workplace and was also technically violating the law by using bookie go-betweens to place wagers in places that weren’t Nevada or Atlantic City, the only places then licensed to do sports gambling.
I am uncomfortable with ESPN and others showing who is playing, who is pitching and what the betting line is. It seems like the went from hiding that stuff to almost promoting it. I don’t have a problem with it per se, but anyone who is really into gambling isn’t looking to Fox or ESPN for their odds.
California is about to vote on two propositions that will effect legal sports gambling here. One would allow online sports gambling, which I thought was already legal. The other would make sports betting only legal at Indian Casinos. You can guess who is supporting and attacking each proposition.
But with todays players making the money they do I don’t see sports gambling becoming a corrupting influence any more than it already is.
Yeah, but if you don’t think that the same thing will trickle into major sports, I have some Pete Rose memorabilia for you.
I tend to be more of a College sports fan, but I can’t help but wonder how stories like the homeless HS kid in CA from Georgia will play out with gambling getting involved as well.
I think what happened to the kid in California will maybe educate others. There was more there than just NIL going on though. I am not a fan of the big dollar amounts involved in some NIL agreements but the system needs time to work itself out.
Sports gambling in the US is still very small, comparatively, to what it is in Europe and especially the UK. And fewer sports leagues on the planet – maybe only the NFL – have the financial value of the English Premier League.
Have there been some gambling scandals in a sport like soccer in Europe? Yep. But they’ve also been in smaller league tiers and in smaller national leagues. I’m unaware of any Pete Rose-magnitude scandal in the EPL, where a manager of a top team or player on a top team even has been implicated in gambling on his own games. And as far as I know, there’s never been a Black Sox style scandal there.
Is there the possibility of a scandalous event? Sure. It’s going to happen. There are scandals that can and will happen with any sort of perceived chance to make money. Stock investment scandals happen. Betting scandals happen. Venture capital scandals happen. Healthcare fraud happens. Etc.
But I would say that few items of this ilk are as heavily regulated, scrutinized, and watched – both from within by sportsbooks themselves, and from without by government regulators – than legalized sports gambling in the United States, which is trying to some extent to learn from how the UK does things with the EPL. The entities who are the most at-risk from this are the league brands and the owners of franchises within those leagues. They all have a very, very vested interest in the scope of hundreds of billions of dollars in keeping the product on the field as pristine as possible when it comes to gambling.
I don’t know what these even are, but they seem like your own representation bias, where you’re not fully familiar with a subject and thus want to project your distaste at that subject onto unrelated items that have wondered through your personal transom. :)
I was thinking about the major gambling scandals in sports in the US.
Those seem like the biggies, scandals that threatened the very integrity and survival of those sports. They all occurred before sports betting was legal outside of Las Vegas, often thanks to organized crime-run, non-regulated bookie operations.
Again, in one of the biggest sports leagues on the planet, where gambling has been legal since its founding (and in which 8 of 20 clubs in the league this season wear the logos of legal sports gambling websites on the fronts of their uniform shirts), I do not think they’ve had a scandal on the magnitude of any of those come to light.
Paul Hornung and Alex Karras, two of the NFL’s biggest stars, banned in 1963 for betting on NFL games, including their own team.
Thanks! I had a vague memory of reading about Hornung being involved in something like that, but didn’t realize Karras was as well. Mongo just pawn in game of life, and all.
The CA propositions are ALL fucked up. You should see how many ads have been aired for months and months and how they snipe at each other.
Right now, sports betting is illegal in CA. Illegal betting takes place, of course. A ton of Indian tribes have casinos allowing various games of chance, but not roulette or dice games, presumably because they’re purely chance and thus real gambly gambling.
Prop 27 has been heavily advertised at least since spring. It would allow sports betting all over the state, with a cut going to all registered tribes, including those that don’t own casinos…and (this is the kicker) it would allow the major sports betting corporations to cut deals with any tribes to offer gambling. I have read that ONLY the big established corps are eligible for such deals. Prop 27 is backed very heavily by those corporations, who are paying for the advertising and of course not mentioning themselves. The ads show this tiny tribe of like 17 people, who talk about their 14,000 year history in CA, their need for prosperity, and how Prop 27 will help the homeless and drug addicts across CA.
Prop 26 would allow sports betting at only racetracks and tribal casinos — punters would have to actually be present there. It would also allow roulette and dice at tribal casinos. It’s backed by tribes that own casinos, and the ads show the leader of such a tribe, also talking about how the money will help end drug use and homelessness in CA. She warns us not to be fooled by Prop 27, which is sponsored by BIG OUT OF STATE CORPORATIONS hoping to get rich.
Since the Prop 26 ads began, the prop 27 ads added a bit where the chief of the little tribe sneers that Prop 26 is for “rich tribes who own big casinos,” but not for tribes like his.
All told, I’m voting against both propositions. There’s a history here of money publicly pledged to the homeless from some big measure getting lawyered away from them, and there’s a very strong history of propositions being completely full of shit scams.
Plus sports other than pro wrestling are both fake and stupid. And even pro wrestling hasn’t been good since, say, 1989.
Wasn’t there a pro tennis scandal a few years back involving some lesser known players?
Football sports gambling scandals (tho the world cup doesn’t really fit…
Yeah, when I started seeing over/unders and spreads listed next to all the college football games this year it felt really disgusting.
It’s not “almost” promoting Scuzz. They have an entire show the Daily Wager dedicated to it. Add in all the Fan Duel and Draft Kings, and Fox’s Bet Now App, SVP’s Bad Beats segment, etc, and it is insane what Jimmy the Greek turned into.
I don’t mind spreads as they can be fun to talk about, and in CFB when we don’t ever really have apples to apples comparisons of teams and their resumes, etc, it can be helpful in evaluating the difference in the popularity polls vs. the professionals (see unranked UW being favored and destroying #11 Michigan St this past weekend).
And while the picks segments can be WAY over done, they can be fun. Especially how Gameday does it with celebrities and Corso. Also Inside College Football with the throne - Jones/Neuheisel/Cross and Aaron Taylor are a lot of fun (that’s the best non-Gameday show around on Tuesday evenings).
Betting lines can be a conversation point. And ESPN isn’t the only network putting them out there. But I don’t think giving betting lines necessarily promotes gambling.
I don’t bet on sports unless I am in a place that will give me free drinks while I do it. But the betting lines do kinda interest me. But I have friends who bet sports all year round and having odds on TV means nothing to me.
Now if Draft Kings or Fan Duel were owned by a network showing betting lines, that would be different. They aren’t, are they?
The stupid Caesar ads are the worst. I wish gambling ads would go the way of cigarette ads.
Fox Bet is effectively a casino which can operate in allowed states
More info from back in the day when they launched