Colbinii wrote:Doctor MJ wrote:PaulieWal wrote:
Allegedly he was running a premium discord to give insider betting tips to the group and then betting on his own unders. If true, this is pretty damning. Needs to be life time banned.
I know I'm the millionth person to say this but:
I'm really blown away that a player in a league that pays this well would think this a reward worth the risk. It's just so, so foolish, to the point that I don't think it makes for a good albatross to place around the NBA's neck.
(On that last note, I share other's disapproval with the NBA and sports world getting in bed with gambling. It's not that I think gambling should be illegal - it'll just drive the gambling underground - but that I think the NBA needs to nurture its fanbase so that it's able to afford to give more money to them in the future, rather than pushing them into a place where they won't be able to afford to spend in the future. That's just the future money part, but of course there are all sorts of other social factors at play.)
This is definitely a monetary vs social issue and none of the main stream media's will address it because all of the media is supported through gambling.
It's really interesting stepping back and looking at what is happening. There is a massive surge of money entering the major sports (Let's focus on NBA though) and that money is allowing anyone involved with the NBA [Owners, Coaches, Players and Media from ESPN to Podcasts] to make more money than they ever have. But what happens when the toxicity of gambling plagues the sports to a degree where the fans don't like it? Who is going to address it? Who is willing to be a whistleblower?
Of course the thing is: The NBA was making thousands before it made millions, and millions before it made billions, and billions before gambling got embraced, so what does it mean to say "supported through gambling"? As I see it, there are two possible answers here:
1. These sports enterprises don't have a way to scale down gracefully when revenue takes a hit, so they got hooked on gambling as a way to sustain themselves in the short term. In which case what we're talking about might simply a later stage in the natural lifecycle of this sort of thing.
2. Corporations have become so concerned with stock price that nothing matters to CEOs other than something that can show profit progress from quarter to quarter.
My guess is it's a bit of both.