NBA bets on fans to lose their earnings
When the NBA announced plans to integrate betting into live game broadcasts on its official mobile app, a league executive hailed it as a way “to create hyper-personalized and customized viewing experiences within NBA games.” That’s one way to put it. Another way is this: The NBA wants to make it as easy as possible for its fans to lose.
Cut through all the slick marketing and inane corporate jargon, and that’s really what this all comes down to, isn’t it? The money you spend on tickets and cable carriage fees and officially licensed merchandise and concessions and parking isn’t enough.
The NBA — just like every other big-time sports league in the country — can’t wait for you to gamble even more of your hard-earned dollars away.
And if you’re sitting there reading this now, thinking, “yeah, but there’s a chance I can win, too?”
Well, bless your heart. And may your bookie of choice have mercy on your bank account.
Look, I’m not naïve enough to believe sports betting is a new phenomenon. People were losing paychecks on point spreads long before placing wagers became legal in 38 states, and the laws prohibiting the practice in Texas aren’t stopping bettors from doing it here now. If you live in San Antonio and are determined to put $50 on the under in the Spurs-knicks game Friday, there is no shortage of illicit offshore sites or friendly neighborhood entrepreneurs who’ll be willing to take your action.
It’s always been that way. There’s a reason the Expressnews has published the latest lines every day for at least a half-century. It’s why some
readers used to buy the paper. And it's why some people watch sports at all.
But what is so striking — and, frankly, so disappointing — about the proliferation of sportsbooks in stadiums and ads during every commercial break and now even in links to betting opportunities in the actual game broadcasts, is that the leagues and the teams now are begging you to engage in an endeavor they know you're likely to regret.
They know sports gambling is addictive. That's why every commercial comes with a disclaimer about being “responsible,” along with a toll-free help line to call.
They know the odds are stacked against you. If they weren't, there wouldn't be a sparkling new casino built in Las Vegas every few months, and illegal bookmakers wouldn't make their
weekly pickups in Mercedes, and companies like Fanduel and Draftkings wouldn't pay millions and millions of dollars to become the official sports betting partners of the NBA, and the NFL, and Major League Baseball.
It's a zero-sum game. Every cent those leagues collect from those sponsorship deals can be traced back to a bet someone lost. And despite how it might look, not all of those losing bets were placed by Shohei Ohtani's former interpreter.
Again, some of these problems would exist whether sports betting was legal or not, and whether leagues embraced it or tried to sweep it under the rug. Pointshaving scandals have been popping up in all kinds of sports, both college and professional, for decades. When the Chicago White Sox were accused of throwing the 1919 World Series, nobody blamed Kevin Hart for showing people how simple it was to bet on the
Reds.
And a valid argument can be made about how legalized sports betting makes it easier for authorities to spot irregularities. That's how integrity monitors were able to flag the activity that led to an Alabama baseball coach losing his job last year, and a Toronto Raptors backup being finding himself at the center of an investigation this week.
Still, this doesn't mean the leagues and the teams need to be encouraging new bettors, which is precisely the point of the NBA'S latest venture. The way it works, according to a statement the league issued with Sportsradar, a global data company, goes like this:
In states where sports betting is legal, viewers who tune into games “can opt-in to have the convenience of viewing and selecting bets directly on NBA League Pass. When ready to place a bet, they are directed to Fanduel or Draftkings, the NBA'S official betting partners,
through a seamlessly embedded link.”
In other words, viewers who otherwise might not have been thinking about point spreads or prop bets will have the chance pop up right at their fingertips. They won't go to a casino. They won't have to find a bookie. They won't even have to navigate on their own to one of the bajillion sites offering online sports betting. All they'll have to do is click an icon on the same screen as the game they're watching.
And the thing is, this idea will work. People will opt in, because it sounds cool. And once they start getting inundated with the opportunities that seem too good to be true (“Victor Wembanyama is -125 to get more than 1.5 blocks in the third quarter? What could go wrong?”), some of them won't be able to resist.
As it catches on, a league will keep getting richer.
Thanks to fans who won't be.