Legalizing Sports Betting – First the NBA, then the World

Sports betting isn’t exactly the giant elephant in the room; it’s more like The Guy on The Couch from the movie Half Baked who quietly lays there.

Sports and sports wagering is no longer that taboo topic that nobody talks about, as evidenced by NBA Commissioner David Stern’s recent statement that he wouldn’t mind if the action was legalized. It’s more that it’s in the room, it’s hush-hush and it’s eventually going to get up off the couch and have a bigger presence.

Stern, who has been one of the more innovative commissioners among the four major sports, has softened his stance towards sports betting recently and he may be the man to change it from a possibility to a reality.

While some people wonder why Stern would be championing this cause – and why now – there are a number of theories for the timing.

For one, by talking about legalizing gambling publicly, it surely softens the blow of the Tim Donaghy scandal, which was a major sports gambling incident. Secondly, we know that betting can help generate interest in a sport and with the NBA now trailing the NHL for attendance, opening up the counter for a different type of ticketing purchase could also boost the NBA’s seat sales.

Furthermore, the NBA has long been known as the “cool” sport among the four majors and if they could be the pioneers in this element as well, they would get an even better reputation among young fans. They’d be like the one dad on the block who still wears hoodies and doesn’t have a problem with his kids partying.

So what does it all mean for the rest of the sports betting world?

In many ways, not much.

To be fair, people who bet online have really been ahead of the curve versus everyone else and now they are catching up. It’s sort of like people who hopped on Facebook and Twitter right when they opened their doors, and the rest of society embraced it a little later on when they recognized the value. Sports betting and online sports wagering will be the same.

For the veterans of the game, though, they can expect some rules to change.

For starters, if the government gives NBA – and later everyone – the green light, they will surely want a piece of the very big pie. Expect to see your winnings taxed and you might even get taxed on deposits. Following that logic, sportsbooks like BetUs that give you a bigger bonus will be at a premium opposed to the ones where you deposit and fend for yourself.

And secondly, sports betting will be more in the open. Right now, when you watch ESPN Sportscenter, they tap dance around spreads and totals, and just make general picks. On Monday Night Football, Al Michaels and Cris Collinsworth walk the tight rope when a fluky play pushes a total ‘over’ or when a late score “makes a lot of people happy”. Once everything is legal, sports betting will be out in the open in all of its beauty like Jessica Biel’s nude scene in Powder Blue.

After all, it’s nothing we haven’t seen before.

Sign up now and get FULL access to all of BetUS features!