NFL and NBA debate pros and cons of federal betting oversight

The introduction of the SAFE Bet Act has sent ripples across the gambling industry, with sports leagues, operators, and the American Gaming Association all weighing in to assess and share their input on what the draft law – which is highly unlikely to pass – could mean for the industry.

Leagues mull over the SAFE Bet Act in private

The SAFE Bet Act was introduced by a pair of lawmakers, Rep. Paul Tonko, D-N.Y., and Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn, who want the federal government to take over the sports betting landscape, putting all existing operations on pause, rolling in a prohibition on gambling advertisement between 8 am and 10 pm and generally passing stronger protection consumer laws.

While industry representatives have firmly opposed the measure in its current form, and the SAFE Bet Act is unlikely to garner enough support to trigger the cataclysmic shift of the industry it suggests, the NBA and the NFL, have been trying to weigh the pros and cons of the proposal.

Talking to ESPN, league sources said that there are both upsides and drawbacks to the legislation. For one, the leagues are interested in seeing certain parts of the gambling experience gone – live betting, which has been enjoying a steady uptake in popularity could be something that the NBA and the NFL would love to see removed from the sports betting landscape.

As a reminder, major leagues such as the NFL have always opted for what industry observers have thought to be the unpopular view. When PASPA was debated, leagues said that operators must pay an integrity fee, supposedly to cover their expenses in protecting "game integrity" but presenting thin evidence that regulated sports betting will increase the instances of game manipulation.

Of course, there have been high-profile cases, such as Jontay Portner’s, but those instances, despite their media echo, are mostly isolated cases and not necessarily tied to regulated gambling. For one, regulated operators are motivated to ensure that they do not allow match-fixing to take place.

Unintended consequences must be avoided, and further discussions ago

The NFL, cited by ESPN, was not openly antagonistic towards the gambling industry, and the source told the publication that the league was concerned about certain aspects of the SAFE Bet Act. However, the proposal was definitely something that was "ripe for further discussion."

The leagues have taken issue with the fact that the fractured regulatory landscape made it harder to monitor and guarantee the integrity of games, and said that the SAFE Bet Act could resolve this. However, the league’s source also warned of "unintended consequences."

Adam Silver, NBA’s Commissioner, has been particularly insistent on this point, although there is still not enough evidence to support the claim that the regulated market is undermining sports integrity in any way. Silver espoused the view that fragmented regulation makes it harder to regulate, and is something that perhaps needs to be addressed.

He however told ESPN that he did not regret the NBA embracing sports betting legalization – and at the time of PASPA’s passage and original debates, Silver and the NBA broke from the rest of the pack and threw their weight behind the measure.

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