NFL broadcasts and coaching news conferences are full of football proverbs. Very often, these are simply explanations for a why a situation demanded avoiding risk, or at least delaying it. And very often, the numbers — while not perfect — tell us otherwise.
In many cases, these unwritten laws of coaching and game management in football are more a function of history and tradition without a space for self-reevaluation or change. That’s not acceptable. Teams who spend all week looking for the tiniest little competitive advantages abandon them when given the opportunity to impact a game. That’s a waste, and it’s time for a change.
Let’s run through some of these close Auston Matthews Womens Jersey scenarios and explain why the traditional method of thinking about them is antiquated. Starting with a classic …
Today, after what he calls the “gamblization” of sports in Australia, Hunt says sports bettors make up one-third of the clinic’s patients.
If sports betting is legalized, will the United States be headed for a future with increased addiction potentially spurned by a rampant barrage of gambling Bobby Baun Womens Jersey
advertising? Proponents point to the expected economic benefits and increased game-integrity protection of legalization. Opponents say those perceived pluses won’t outweigh the pitfalls.
“For the two-thirds-plus of Americans who rarely or never engage in commercial gambling, the change will be negative,” said Michael K. Fagan, a former federal prosecutor and current adjunct professor at Washington University School of Law. “Anyone fairly and comprehensively evaluating the unbiased, independent academic, health-care and economic evidence readily finds that it weighs in favor of continuing prohibitions on commercial sports gambling.”
Sam Skolnik, author of “High Stakes: The Rising Cost of America’s Gambling Addiction,” believes the only thing truly inevitable about the future of sports betting in the U.S. is that similar pitfalls to what Australia is experiencing will follow any expansion of legal sports betting.
Daily fantasy ads were everywhere in the fall of 2015. Could gambling ads be equally prevalent if betting is legalized in the U.S.? ESPN Illustration
“Voters, state legislators and other stakeholders should start thinking about the potential downsides of what would be a major expansion of legalized gambling,” Skolnik said. “You’re going to have this pool of new gamblers, and there is going to be a subset of problem gamblers. This is extremely painful for them and not just their families. It’s for their employers, the whole communities that will pay the costs of increased gambling addiction.”
In the U.S., gambling addiction peaked at about 2.7 percent in the late 1990s and early 2000s, according to the National Council on Problem Gambling (NCPG). It has been on the decline ever since, even as gambling has expanded across the nation, and has now settled around 2 percent. At state-run problem gambling hotlines, calls from sports bettors are rare. In 2014, less than 1 percent of callers to the Nevada’s gambling hotline identified sports betting as their most problematic form of gambling.
In fact, the NCPG does not oppose the legalization of sports betting and will announce a resolution later this year that will lay out recommended safeguards for an expanded regulated market.