We’ve come a long way since Hall of Famers Mickey Mantle and Willie Mays were banned from baseball for associating with gamblers – not betting on games or tipping them off about injuries, but by shaking their hands as Atlantic City casino greeters.
Professional sports leagues that once professed zero tolerance for gambling are moving steadily toward accepting betting on their games, partly because of the futility in fighting it and partly to get a cut of the action.
One day after the NBA signed a sponsorship agreement with FanDuel, a website where fans can win (and lose) money playing daily fantasy sports, commissioner Adam Silver wrote in The New York Times that it was time to consider legalizing sports gambling.
“There is an obvious appetite among sports fans for a safe and legal way to wager on professional sporting events,” Silver said in an op-ed article published online Thursday. “I believe that sports betting should be brought out of the underground and into the sunlight where it can be appropriately monitored and regulated.”
Gambling has been the scourge of sports at least since eight members of the Chicago White Sox were banished for fixing the 1919 World Series. NFL stars Paul Hornung and Alex Karras were suspended for gambling in 1963, and Pete Rose was given a lifetime ban from baseball in 1989 – all in the interest of protecting the integrity of the games.