As It Embraces Las Vegas, N.F.L. Is Awash in Gambling Contradictions

Money has corrupted sports at least down to and including the college level. It would not surprise me that it's already deep into high schools. Gambling is one aspect of this but so is the amount of money paid to coaches and to recruit players as well as other costs of different sports.
For the most part people seem to see nothing wrong with this, especially if it has to do with the team that they follow or support.
At the professional level one of the saddest things is how money even controls where teams call home. It has nothing to do with the fans and the tradition that the people of a city find important. It boils down to what the sports oligarchs happen to decide, like Jerry Jones of Dallas being a prime backer of Oakland's move to Las Vegas. Just another aspect of American life where real people are ignored by the 1%.

The NFL scheduled four games in London in 2017.

You can literally walk around the corner into a betting shop and place different types of wagers on a game. Teams are flown to London many days before a game. The NFL has been scheduling games in London for years.

Roger- It seems strange to me you have encouraged a larger footprint in London if you are so opposed to gambling on NFL games.

There's gambling and gamblers in every city and state. Las Vegas is at least open about it and has government regulation as opposed to New York and New Jersey where sports gambling is run by the mafia and where the Giants and Jets play. The notion that sports gambling only occurs in Las Vegas because it is legal there naively ignores that New York is the gambling capital of the US.

Oakland, however, has the league's worst stadium and although the Bay Area is rich, local politicians are too cheap to build a new one. The 49ers are sufficient pro football for the Bay Area.

Only question is: Does the Mob still run Vegas. The answer to that will determine how all of this will shake out. Stay tuned...

Greed.... one of the 7 deadly sins...

The NFL is headed in the direction of English Premier League soccer. Not only is betting on matches perfectly legal, many of the teams' jerseys feature prominent online gambling sites. It's just too much money the NFL is leaving on the table.

I'm reminded of the old saying that money is the root of all evil. Mass sports entertainment is taking another step in the long process of transformation from sports as a popular recreational pastime into something that will be ugly and unrecognizable. Each step has its own logic, but already the outcomes include FIFA corruption, PED scandals in Olympic sports and cycling, absurd player salaries, brain damaged ex football players, under-the-table payments to college athletes, publically funded subsidies to privately owned franchises, fantasy sports gambling, the WWE and more. It will get worse, not better.

Raiders New Slogan.........Just Cover Baby !!!!! Stick that in your pretty pink skirt Rodge !!!!

Given what NFL players make and the fact that most of them make it for a couple of years on average, there's little chance of another black sox scandal happening. The revolution in labor rights in professional sports that started in baseball from the 1970's and has made it to all sports in one form or another thus acting as a check on the kind of thing that all pro sports leagues rightly fear. There would be enough of a disincentive in the form of lost income, lifetime bans and long term suspensions to keep NFL players on the level. As usual with this league, the issue is more "how much of the money can the business keep for itself" more than anything else. Love or hate Roger Goodell (and like most New Englanders I'm not a fan because of the way he tried, in my opinion to shift the public's attention away from real outrageous behavior by some of the leagues players onto the team everybody outside of five and half states loves to hate) but he's done a good job of making money for them and keeping the damage to their brand from a host of issues minimal until a couple of years ago after which the national lessons about climate and physics in New England began, the league sacrificed its credibility for most folks in five and a half states but won the national headline war, ate up time and thus salvaged its brand from the fallout of real scandals. Roger's focus on getting all the money for the principals not the players or the states fits perfectly.

For a non gambler, it is staggering to go to a Sports Book in Las Vegas. It will only be a matter of months before an official takes a nice chunk of cash to "just give me one call." Officials are not full time league employees and Las Vegas will offer many "opportunities" to make a few extra bucks.

The reason they want a national policy and national regulations is because it's pretty easy to grease 51 Senators so that the law, when enacted, will require a cut of the gambling money go to the league. It's pure greed, as always.

We have to make sure that we continue to stay focused on making sure that everyone has full confidence that what you see on the field is not influenced by any outside factors,” Goodell said last month. “We will not relent on that.”

Wow. What a bold stance, Roger. Making sure your games are on the up-and-up. That's like a auto maker saying, "We will continue to make sure the brakes in our cars will stop you when depressed. On that we will not relent."

I think the NFL's relationship with gambling (official or otherwise), has gone well beyond the thin edge of a wedge. I suppose it was inevitable. Pity.

Everyone from the old school knows that before television, the main driving force behind football was gambling - all of it illegal save for the books in Nevada.

It is a sad fact that the United States has gone from a manufacturing society to one based on services. And one of the most lucrative services is gambling.

Should not the NFL be part of this society with a franchise in Las Vegas? Will there be a greater temptation to fix games with the Raiders in Las Vegas, or lesser since bets on the home team will be more closely monitored?

To me, it just doesn't sound right - Las Vegas Raiders. Let me tell you, during law school I knew a bookmaker who would literally make a valise of money after an NFL weekend.

The Raiders only play 10 dates a year, counting the exhibitions. Are they going to have lines on those games? If not, revenue at the sports books will suffer because the bookmaker makes money from the juice on every game - no matter who wins.

NFL football is still king, and the Raiders will have more revenue with this new stadium - as well as support from casinos who will buy tickets.

I'd have to think the Raiders will hurt the Vegas Golden Knights NHL team - which will play many more dates without benefit of an ice hockey heritage in the desert. Heck, their name should have been Black Jacks or Aces - why beat around the bush about Las Vegas and gambling?

"we continue to stay focused on making sure that everyone has full confidence that what you see on the field is not influenced by any outside factors,” Goodell said last month. “We will not relent on that.”

So many NFL fans would laugh out loud if they simultaneously read that statement that the "Beast Quake" would pale in comparison. Ex-pats in Tokyo might feel the tremors.

I've been following NFL football (via my hapless Detroit Lions) for over 1/2 century. Goodell's claim is hilarious. There are more "outside factors" affecting the league than I can count, including the fact that the NFL lied about knowledge of the dangers of playing professional football for decades in its quest for ever greater profits.

Do I still watch Lions games? Yep. Is that cynical of me? You bet. It's people like me who keep the NFL profitable. But seriously, Roger ... don't ever think that my cynicism means I'm blind.

It's only a matter of time before the league confronts a gambling scandal. Look at the vulnerabilities. Low-paid game officials who are not fulltime professionals, lots of rank and file players without guaranteed contracts. And Vegas hasn't really changed at its core, it's just gotten an image makeover.
But then again, the NFL is all about image.

Seton Hall should have queried whether Vegas was tarnishing it's reputation by letting the NFL in. The NFL is only opposed to sports gambling because they haven't quite figured out how to monetize it yet.

Principles be damned, there's money to be made

This is a business that has tacitly encouraged the use of the line and game odds for decades. Sportscasters and announcers routinely indicate who is favored and by how much, the line is published in every newspaper, the once sainted Brent Musburger, formerly the face of the league is a front man for a sports book and the interest in the league is overwhelmingly high because of the desire to gamble and the millions of dollars bet each week. The NFL in Las Vegas? The real question is what took these hypocrites so long to move there?