Some other NBA Players With Gambling Sponsorships
With the recent news/controversy that Giannis has become a shareholder in Kalshi (a ‘trading’ website), and only a day after the trade deadline, I wanted to see if other notable stars have partaken in advertising gambling around the association.
Now obviously not all of these are as serious as becoming a shareholder in one of the shadiest gambling companies around, but I am under the belief that any advertisement of this stuff in the NBA is unacceptable.
LeBron James
You would think LeBron, being the face of the NBA, would face more consequences for his involvement in sports betting advertisements.
Here he appears alongside Kevin Hart (another frequent NBA Collaborator) in an ad for DraftKings
https://youtu.be/6dUWAznQ85M?si=069_wpGM8Gfj6z6F
This ad alone was said to be ‘267% more effective than the sports betting [ad] average’ (https://gamingamerica.com/news/11988/draftkings-ad-starring-kevin-hart-and-lebron-james-highlighted-for-its-effectiveness)
LeBron has been shown promoting gambling as far back as 2019 (https://sports.yahoo.com/article/old-lebron-james-bet-tweet-204100070.html), however in this tweet he isn’t specifically being sponsored by a company
Stephen Curry
Steph Curry is another respected NBA player with ties to shady trading businesses.
Here he is (alongside Shaq, because of course) advertising a Crypto website, which I think safely falls in the category of gambling
https://youtu.be/kJTwwfS4vBs?si=c4kOkjeF7-GXH53P
Now I couldn’t track these down, but I saw many people saying they have seen Curry in sports betting ads, so that might also be another one to add to the list.
Nikola Jokic
Jokic, again, is a beloved player, yet had seemingly faced zero judgement for partaking in gambling ads. His ads seem to be more Serbian focused, perhaps playing a little into the lack of controversy in this predominantly English speaking community.
Now I am not exactly sure what is happening in this commercial but it seems to be a Serbian sports betting app with a focus on soccer
https://np.reddit.com/r/nba/s/ZhXUQ1bWg9
This one was reposted here recently (but taken down by mods due to being a 3-year-old article), but Jokic again being involved in gambling - this time as the first brand ambassador for Superbet
https://np.reddit.com/r/denvernuggets/s/9tSarxw2Md
Sports betting is becoming an ever increasing problem in Serbia, so Jokic partaking in the advertisement of it is extraordinarily disappointing
Kevin Durant
Another face of gambling, KD, here he is advertising FanDuel as ‘for the everyday people’. This one especially feels remarkable due to several cases of KD calling out fans for betting irresponsibly.
https://youtu.be/H5OMJbFAE-o?si=luoP-Ne68L-LVJ9L
Now this list doesn’t even begin to cover all the podcasts by former and current NBA players with gambling sponsorships, as well as many other names around the association. Gambling is a plague and Adam Silver NEEDS to step up and do something about it.