"From time to time in this column, I like to look at something I wrote in the past and see if it holds up to retrospective scrutiny. Early last year, after the baseball superstar Shohei Ohtani and his interpreter Ippei Mizuhara were ensnared in a major gambling scandal that ended with Mizuhara in jail, I wrote a column titled "Online Gambling Is Changing Sports for the Worse," in which I expressed concern for the "integrity of the game," and worried that betting by athletes and others around them—Ohtani himself denied any involvement and was never charged with anything—might begin occurring with such frequency that it would cause the public, including children, to lose faith in what they were watching."
"During the past two weeks, that view, or something like it, has been expressed in many corners—mostly in response to an F.B.I. investigation into N.B.A. players and coaches. An Opinion piece in the Times declared "Gambling Is Killing Sports and Consuming America," and argued that "fandom" has become "an afterthought, not just to casual viewers but also the leagues themselves." As someone who has written quite a bit on the topic over the years, and has tried to keep an open mind as apps such as DraftKings and FanDuel have made their way across the country, I've come up with a list of three reminders to consider before passing judgment on whatever the latest scandal might be."
High-profile gambling scandals involving athletes and associates have renewed calls to reject legalized sports betting and alarms about the integrity of professional sports. Opinion pieces claim that betting has shifted fandom and that leagues and viewers now prioritize wagering over the game itself. Many bettors previously operated illegally, so the rise in visible betting may reflect legality and reporting rather than a sudden epidemic of corruption. Betting carries well-known personal risks similar to substance abuse or risky financial speculation. Careful distinction between increased transparency and increased wrongdoing is necessary before broad condemnation of legalized betting.
Read at The New Yorker
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