HOUSTON — In response to NBA commissioner Adam Silver’s recent statements that legalized sports wagering is inevitable in more states than Nevada and that the league will actively participate in same received a huge endorsement Saturday night from Mark Cuban.
HOUSTON — In response to NBA commissioner Adam Silver’s recent statements that legalized sports wagering is inevitable in more states than Nevada and that the league will actively participate in same received a huge endorsement Saturday night from Mark Cuban.
The Mavericks’ owner said before the Houston game that he believes the NBA is not being forthright if it doesn’t support and market the idea of legalized gambling on its games.
“I agree 100 percent,” Cuban said. “I think we’re the world’s biggest hypocrites when we say: oh, we don’t want you betting on our games and then we get all excited about the sports betting line and people go to Vegas on trips won through the NBA or the NFL. It’s hugely hypocritical.
“I just think that Adam did the exact right thing by focusing on the federal regulations and making those changes there, that it will change. It’s just a question of when.”
Asked if it would happen during his ownership, Cuban said: “Oh yeah. I think over the next three to five years, it’ll change and it’ll be interesting to see how the NFL reacts. They so far have been adamant against it because I guess they have data that says the NFL doesn’t benefit from gaming or gambling.”
Silver has said in interviews that “if you have a gentleman’s bet or small wager on any kind of sports contest, it makes you that much more engaged in it. That’s where we are going to see it pay dividends.”
The argument is that fans would pay closer attention to games and the league.
Cuban said the blueprint is already in place.
“I think it’ll be legalized in casinos (outside Nevada),” he said. “Then we’ll charge the casinos for information sources, video sources. All you got to do is look overseas. You can go and legally bet on the NBA in the UK and other countries and they’re actually big customers of NBA video. The gambling sites overseas can’t just show NBA video. That would be copyright violations. So they must be paying for it. You got a template already where it’s legal in the rest of the world other than North America.”
Then Cuban went into his jokester mode and said: “It’s crazy that we allow it in the rest of the world, but it’s really upsetting, particularly here in Houston, that sports leagues don’t think Americans are good enough to gamble on our sports. But the rest of the world is. That’s un-American.”
