We need to get a handle on sports betting
People check their phones while waiting for the NCAA basketball tournament to begin as they sit in the sports book at a casino in Atlantic City, New Jersey, Thursday. Credit: AP/Wayne Parry
On the verge of baseball's Opening Day, amid the March Madness of college basketball, we’ve reached the multibillion-dollar intersection of sports and legalized mobile gambling.
The plainest exhibit of the national dilemma comes from the National Basketball Association, where Cleveland Cavaliers coach J.B. Bickerstaff revealed he received threats from gamblers last season and reported it to the NBA. One threat-maker was identified but not charged. “They got my telephone number and were sending me crazy messages about where I live and my kids and all that stuff,” Bickerstaff said before the Cavs hosted the Miami Heat last week. “So it is a dangerous game and a fine line that we’re walking, for sure.”
His conclusion about the line we’re walking is a matter of common sense. But what will be done to stem the potential sea change in our sense of sports and sportsmanship at a time when private profits are huge, the sports enterprises are ostentatiously sponsored by and linked to the gambling operations, gambling addictions are rampant, and governments are too bought-in to resist the massive revenues?
A big betting scandal is still being sorted out in matters related to National League baseball star Shohei Ohtani. Last week, charges surfaced of illegal gambling and the theft from Ohtani of at least $4.5 million by his interpreter, Ippei Mizuhara, his inseparable factotum. Addressing the news media Monday, Ohtani said what we'd all like to believe: “I never bet on baseball or any other sports, or never have asked somebody to do it on my behalf” — and never used a bookie. “I am beyond shocked,” he added.
Even the nature of the betting action changes how the games affect people. If you bet on a horse and study the Daily Racing Form, a fan’s knowledge could have results, or at least have the bettor imagine it as a matter of skill. If you examine a team’s record and injury list, you can get a sense of what might be a smart bet. Does that translate when the betting apps — available in your pocket in a split second — allow you to bet on an individual pitch or football play? The randomness of the latter has to be bigger than the guesswork involved in the former. And it’s as addictively easy as reaching into your pocket for a cigarette.
FanDuel and DraftKings are integrated into telecasts with real-time odds. Can that be healthy?
The college basketball point-shaving scandals of the 1950s and 1960s are mostly forgotten. Maybe history should be studied by sports leagues as a warning on what to avoid. Can government officials see past the barrels of tax money and objectively search for a better balance between fun and fever?
Working against the money frenzy to regulate this well is a big governance challenge. For the good of the games, we need to do better.
MEMBERS OF THE EDITORIAL BOARD are experienced journalists who offer reasoned opinions, based on facts, to encourage informed debate about the issues facing our community.
