The four major North American sports leagues and the NCAA are trying to prevent the state of Delaware from offering sports betting.
The NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL and NCAA have asked for an injunction to stop Delaware from allowing single-game betting on professional and college sporting events. This comes days after the four leagues and the NCAA filed a lawsuit challenging Delaware’s “right to establish sports betting.” Currently, Delaware plans to introduce its sports lottery “in time for the NFL season.”
Gambling on sports — whether in Nevada or on the many online sports betting sites — continues to be both pervasive and profitable. For Delaware, the addition of legal sports betting is projected to give the state an additional “$55 million in annual revenue.”
But despite the money-making potential, sports betting also continues to be a thorn in the side of professional sports leagues. The NBA, for example, is just over two years removed from the news of the Tim Donaghy scandal. Meanwhile, the aftermath of the Pete Rose scandal still reverberates in Major League Baseball — a sport in which the Commissioner’s office was established in response to a gambling scandal involving the 1919 White Sox.
Delaware, along with Nevada, Montana and Oregon, is one of four states in which sports betting is not banned. Those four states were exempt from the 1992 act banning sports betting, as they had previously offered such services. In 1976, Delaware had a sports lottery that offered parlay bets, but not the single-game betting the state now plans to offer.
That is the major issue for the sports leagues. Delaware’s exemption from the 1992 act, according to the leagues, only allows it to offer sports gambling only to the extent that it had offered previously. In other words, because Delaware’s previous sports betting stint “only included parlay betting … the state doesn’t have the right to expand into single-game betting.”
The leagues argue that legalized single-game sports betting could result in sporting events being tainted — or perhaps worse, the perception that those events have been tainted. An attorney for the leagues noted that “[s]ingle-game betting is most susceptible to influence and thus fosters suspicion that a game has been ‘fixed.’“
NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell argued that legalizing sports betting “would irreparably harm professional and amateur sports by fostering suspicion and skepticism” that games have been influenced by outside factors. MLB President Bob Dupuy told USA Today that “We sell the integrity of the game ? and more betting on the outcome is troublesome.” NBA Deputy Commissioner Adam Silver, also to USA Today: “What we need are safeguards that can be put in place so that it won’t affect the outcome of games.” Congressman and former NFL player Heath Shuler said in a letter to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder that sports betting “threatens to destroy the necessary sense of competition that makes sports great.”
If the leagues are granted their injunction, Delaware would not be able to begin offering single-game betting by the start of the NFL season. However, the injunction does “not seek to prevent the state from offering” the type of parlay bets that Delaware offered in the 1970s.
It should be pointed out that the NFL sued to stop Delaware from offering those parlay bets in the 1970s and lost.
In a letter to Goodell, Delaware House majority leader Peter Schwartzkopf noted “the close nexus between gambling” and pro sports leagues. For example, Joe and Gavin Maloof own both the Sacramento Kings and the Palms Casino, which allows betting on pro basketball games. Meanwhile, some Major League Baseball teams have marketing deals with casinos. Schwartzkopf: “It is hard to imagine why moving forward with sports betting in Delaware will undermine the integrity of professional or college sports.”
New Jersey state senator Ray Lesniak, who along with NJ Gov. John Corzine is involved in a lawsuit to have the 1992 ban on sports betting declared unconstitutional, says sports leagues are only objecting to sports betting because “they’re not getting a piece of the action.” Lesniak: “Sports betting’s legal throughout the world. Billions of dollars are bet here illegally in the U.S. It hasn’t destroyed soccer and the other sports overseas, and it won’t destroy sports here.”
Considering the cautionary tales from the past — the Black Sox, Rose and Donaghy — are the leagues on the right side of this issue? Or does the potential benefit to states override the possibility of an isolated referee, player or coach affecting the outcome of results?
