NBA Owners Support Adam Silver's Push For Legalized Gambling

Last year Commissioner Adam Silver wrote an editorial in the New York Times arguing for the legalization of sports betting and termed it "inevitable" at the Bloomberg Sports Business Summit in New York last September.

"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," said Silver.

Now, Neil Best at Prosportsdaily.com reports that during the NBA's annual Technology Summit Commissioner Adam Silver reiterated his position to legalize sports betting and many of the NBA's owners are behind him. When interviewed Mark Cuban the outspoken owner of the Dallas Mavericks laid out these thoughts.

"We've always been hypocritical saying we didn't realize it was a big part of interest in the game," Mavericks owner Mark Cuban said. "When you do any work on where people are actually gambling, it's all overseas and places we can't see, and the league has got to monitor all these third-party betting sites and that makes it a lot tougher.

"By bringing it where we can see it, you reduce a lot of the risk that something bad can happen."

Jeanie Buss the owner of the Los Angeles Lakers was very plain spoken on the topic.

"It already exists now, so as a league we're behind our commissioner in the process of supporting legalization on a federal level. We want to see him accomplish that goal, because we feel that any engagement with the fans is a positive."

The NBA signed a partnership deal with FanDuel, the daily fantasy website, in November, and it has become a shareholder of that company. Thus the league has become a partner in the endless loop of betting fans generating more interest in NBA games, TV ratings and other revenue.

Hat tip to RipCityAshland for the lead.