Maybe, but money’s always talked. And when it comes to sports and gambling, it talks pretty loudly.
In his argument, Silver cited several key cultural trends: the proliferation of legal casinos and lotteries across the country, the ease of gambling on sports in other countries like Britain (where you can bet on games on your phone), and the huge amount of money (estimated to be somewhere between $80 and $380 billion annually) that’s illegally wagered with offshore bookmaking operations by American sports fans.
Nah, I wouldn’t expect the NBA to be found on the corner tomorrow, competing with your local bookie. But fantasy sports? It’s already there, bro.
But Silver left out a few trends, too. “It’s not just the offshore, illegal sort of gambling,” Dennis Coates says. “It’s things like FanDuel.com.” The “daily fantasy sports” site, not technically considered gambling, allows users to effectively bet on individual players’ statistics in each game, and took in some $57 million in profits in 2014 — the same year the NBA bought a stake in the company.
If the pros manage to suck it up and swallow their qualms about gambling – there so much money there! – can we really expect the NCAA to sit idle and let all that loot pass by the schools? Can you imagine what an officially sanctioned March Madness bracket game could bring in?
Best of all, unlike the NBA, the NCAA doesn’t have to add a presence in Vegas to make it happen. It’s already there.
Get The Picture 
Was it a GM at GM who infamously said, “Our business isn’t making cars, it’s making money,” or something to that effect? It was one of those missteps that helped usher in the next wave of Conventional Consulting Wisdom: the Core Competency.
Anyways, I keep thinking about that GM every time I read something these days about sports management, college or pro.
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The point is that General Motors is not in business to make cars, but to make money. … a poorer car with a high profit margin, isn’t it obvious what the choice will be?
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/1964/apr/30/general-motors-3/
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Commissioner Silver is very smart to make this a priority of his administration, and in due time the other pro commissioners will surely jump on board as well. There’s a saying in pro sports when it comes to new intuitively smart new ideas, technologies, and trends: the NBA does it first, the NFL gets the most publicity from it, and the MLB does it last but makes the most money.
As for the NCAA, who exactly do they think they are trying to fool with their nonsensical stance against betting on college sports? This is the same organization that shamelessly embraces myriad number of sponsors for just about everything, including, of all things, Warner ladders as the “official ladder of NCAA sports” (and thus prominently displayed/used during various net cutting ceremonies.) Yep, non-paid NCAA athletes must use a sponsored Warner ladder (thanks to their 7 figure sponsorship deal) to cut down nets….yet a mere $25 wager on a game by joe six pack is completely unethical and wrong.
And lets not forget their agreement with Powerade, in which only special blue Powerade cups are allowed at the Final Four. And if you dare try to bring your own non-Powerade cup in, they will confiscate it and/or remove you from the premises, as what happened to the NYT writer last year who wrote about his experience testing such an insanely hypocritical policy (his coffee mug was confiscated on press row in stern fashion).
I’ll go ahead and predict it now: as soon as the NCAA discovers a way to directly profit on gambling on their events, they immediately will do a 180 and will fully embrace it. Because, after all, it surely will all go to benefit their precious student athletes.
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“As GM goes, so goes the country.”
– Charley Wilson
That statement may come back in the form of legalized gambling on sports that is long overdue. Hell, I lost my money the good old fashioned way – in the stock market. If that ain’t legalized gambling, Obama will never be elected President.
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When the landed gentry collect a vig off of a bet on Google stock its called “capitalism.” When an Italian collects a vig off of a bet on the NY Giants its called “organized crime.”
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FIFY.
Yakuza
The Italians have taken a pretty big hit in the USA and largely operate in the old country now in sex, drugs, and extortion.
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I looked up “fify” and I’m hoping that was a typo…. If that’s in your auto correct, you got some splainin’ to do.
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FIFY= Fixed It For You.
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Jeepers. I guess there is more than one meaning to fify. Mine had nothing to do with “teen age girls” though. http://acronyms.thefreedictionary.com/FIFY.
rofl
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Good enough. “The google” led me to urban dictionary whose definition was a little creepy.
FWIW (that’s one i know) I don’t get the “fixed it for you” or the reference to the Japanese version of the mob though.
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Perhaps I’m just being overly clever? lol. Japanese mob are heavily into gambling. Italians not nearly as much. Mexicans run a big drug business, illegal immigration (coyotes) and apparently al qaeda camps near New Mexico? I have a cousin in the GBI and when we are not talking sports a lot of our conversations drift into his career and interests.
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“Fixed it for you” can and is used on here as a parody of an observation or can even be done on a statistically correct statement. It’s a different take and twist to what you had originally typed, but now with a continued point that is usually funny. Better get used to it because I’ve seen some very humorous FIFYs here. It’s not usually a criticism of any merit, it’s just Dawgs being jokers. It’s all good.
Sometimes we just rock back here and smell the cookies.
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The state of Georgia already sponsors gambling, and takes in over $ 1 billion per year. One-third of this money is earmarked to fund college scholarships.
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A friend of mine refers to this legalized gambling as a “tax on people that can’t do math.”
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Wealth-redistribution?
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Wealth-redistribution-redistribution.
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In reverse.
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Zell Miller FTW!
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We won big on the lottery and never bought a ticket. Both daughters went to college on the Hope scholarship.
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Also referred to as a “tax on stupid people”…
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Buying a single lottery ticket is not a dumb idea. The minimal investment vs. the potential (but remote) payoff is worth it. Buying anymore than one is not a smart proposition at all.
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lol
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What about Keno?
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I don’t know. Can you win 150 million with a one dollar investment? If so, then play once a week. If the odds are like the “win a billion with a perfect NCAA bracket” contest i.e, you can’t win, then keep your buck. Unlikely and impossible are two different concepts. One may be worth a buck for a chance at huge payout and one isn’t.
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Depends on pot odds, doesn’t it? And immortality waiting for the odds to play out.
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When you win your 40 million don’t take it all in one lump sum!
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Always take it in one sum (but include the kids as owners so you don’t get triple dipped at estate time!) Hope I get to demonstrate the correct way to handle that situation to everyone.
But I don’t see how Vegas can have legalized sports gambling on sports, and other states are limited to horse and dog racing. Wish NJ had pushed that, I think it is silly to allow tens of billions of dollars to slip away off shore, or to bookies that could be taxed by states in deep doo-doo. Not going to stop it, might as well legalize it and tax it. Same with mary jane and prostitution. But to allow one state to be approved is a precedent that shouldn’t be denied others who want to pursue it. Doesn’t matter to me because I am going to bet football anyway, but why turn down free money? Like the lottery, it is a tax on the willing.
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http://www.businessinsider.com/should-you-take-the-annuity-or-the-lump-sum-if-you-win-the-lottery-2013-9
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When the NCAA gets into the gambling, how long before you here about students placing bets for the teams athletes because the athletes will no be allowed to gamble. Wait never mind, Winston did that last year.
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Vegas already permits betting on college games. Why would they want to cut the NCAA in on the action?
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True dat.
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