NBA Commissioner Adam Silver Says It’s Time For Legalized Sports Gambling

In an op-ed for the New York Times, NBA Commissioner Adam Silver says it’s time for Americans to hop aboard the money train with the legalization of sports betting.

Silver pointed to Europe’s legal sports betting market and wrote that Congress “should adopt a federal framework that allows states to authorize betting on professional sports, subject to strict regulatory requirements and technological safeguards.”

It’s the third time since taking over for former commissioner David Stern that Silver has spoken out about his support of legalized sports betting in the U.S. His latest remarks come one week before a federal judge will rule on New Jersey’s efforts to bring Las Vegas-style sports betting to its struggling casinos and race tracks.

Four states currently allow some form of sports betting and Nevada is the only one to allow single-game betting.

Silver’s comments are part of a growing conversation about legitimizing an industry in which many people are already participating.

He added that sports betting is widespread and a thriving underground business, despite PASPA (the The Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act of 1992), but would like to see it “brought out of the underground and into the sunlight where it can be appropriately monitored and regulated.”

“Times have changed since PASPA was enacted,” Silver wrote. “Gambling has increasingly become a popular and accepted form of entertainment in the United States. Most states offer lotteries. Over half of them have legal casinos. Three have approved some form of Internet gambling, with others poised to follow.”

Silver emphasized the need for strict regulation to protect the integrity of the games, including “mandatory monitoring and reporting of unusual betting-line movements; a licensing protocol to ensure betting operators are legitimate; minimum-age verification measures; geo-blocking technology to ensure betting is available only where it is legal; mechanisms to identify and exclude people with gambling problems; and education about responsible gaming.”

I think I speak for all degenerates when I say this dream needs to become a reality as soon as humanly possible.

[H/T: ESPN]