NBA Commissioner David Stern said in an interview that legal sports betting wouldn't increase danger to game results and will open new revenue streams.

Bare months after joining the NFL and other sports leagues in hounding Delaware out of its try to conduct regulated sports betting, NBA Commissioner David Stern admits the gambling issues raised by opponents are outdated, and suggests the NBA may soon look to revenue from legalized sports wagering.

In an interview with Ian Thomsen of SI.com, Stern says that the anti-gambling stance of sports leagues comes from a special time, when legal gambling was confined to Nevada and such accepted gaming as state lotteries and casinos in Atlantic City were hot-topic issues. The NBA head acknowledges the attitudes people residents have changed.

"I think that that league policy was formulated at a time when gambling was far less widespread -- even legally," Stern told Thomsen. "But having said that, it's now an issue of national policy: gambling is good."

Stern further threw the disingenuous position of the NFL under the bus, shrugging aside the notion that legal sports betting would somehow create greater temptation and possibility of corruption in game results.

""I think the threat is the same, legal and illegal," Stern stated in regards to the influence of gambling rings. "Buried within that threat there's an enormous opportunity as well."

When asked if regulated sports gambling wouldn't actually protect NBA games while producing new revenue for the league and federal and state governments, Stern allowed that the fast answer has always been within the negative, but that, disregarding inherited prejudices in answering, future NBA leaders should take a protracted take a look at changing that answer.

Published on December 11, 2009 by TomWeston

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