NBA commissioner says legal sports gambling is ‘inevitable’

Gambling is a major part of sports, and NBA commissioner Adam Silver expects the league to profit from the “inevitable” spread of legalized sports gambling around the United States, according to Bloomberg’s Mason Levinson and Scott Soshnick.

This is a change of stance for the NBA, who joined other major sports leagues in 2012 in opposing a plan set forth by New Jersey governor Chris Christie that would have legalized betting at New Jersey race tracks and Atlantic City casinos. Former NBA commissioner David Stern expressed strong opposition to the plan, even saying that “New Jersey has no idea what it’s doing and doesn’t care because all it’s interested in is making a buck or two,” according to ESPN’s David Pardum.

But Silver is not David Stern, and the new commissioner expressed an openness to sports betting at the Bloomberg Sports Business Summit in New York:

“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, 52.

Silver also said betting on sports helps increase interest in the games:

“If you have a gentleman’s bet or a small wager on any kind of sports contest, it makes you that much more engaged in it,” Silver said. “That’s where we’re going to see it pay dividends. If people are watching a game and clicking to bet on their smartphones, which is what people are doing in the United Kingdom right now, then it’s much more likely you’re going to stay tuned for a long time.”

Silver addressed other issues at the summit, including ways to continue to grow the NBA internationally. In an interview with Bloomberg’s Stephanie Ruhle and Cory Johnson (via ProBasketballTalk), Silver discussed problems with time zone differences and specifically brought up China as an example:

”I think the biggest challenge (to growing the game internationally) is the time zone differences. I mean, for example, in China, roughly 12 hours different from the East Coast. So prime time games are on early in the morning, so you have to figure out whether we need to create new products, condensed games that are shown later, whether it becomes a business of highlights, whether it’s equivalent of tweets and other forms of social media.

”I think that’s sort of - part of the biggest challenge. I mean, ultimately, whether we should consider time-shifting some of our games. Once the audience becomes big enough, maybe it’s not so crazy to ask a team once every two months to play a Saturday morning game....

“Yes, maybe when the audience gets big enough in China and you’re reaching 100 million people in China to say so maybe once in a while a team will play at 10:00 on Saturday morning.”

Considering the quality of play in some of the early weekend games that already occur, starting a few hours earlier could be pretty rough. But as Silver notes, that option isn’t close to happening, so people don’t have to freak out about it just yet. There are other short-term ways to help grow the market in China, including a potential partnership with the Chinese Basketball Association that helps get that league more visibility.