[Vorkunov] “We have to be cognizant that we’re not developing a generation of people only watching the sport to gamble.” Timberwolves team president Tim Connelly was asked about dangers of sports gambling and the contradictions it has created.
Adam Silver will be knocking on his door any second now
I would just simply not answer the door
Wait til daytime
But still don’t invite him in
Can the subject still bite if one were to smear garlic on their neck?
Nasty work
Funny thing is the lore of vampires used to be that they walked around during the day just without magic powers. It wasn’t until the movie Nosferatu that light killing them became fake canon.
I think making Adam Sipber stand in the sun would be bad for his health regardless of what vampire powers he has.
Lord it’s the devil, should I let him in?
He’ll just slither under the door
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It’s fine, he can’t cross the threshold unless he’s directly invited in.
A two year ban for the owner and the GM, and $1.4 million fine for Anthony Edwards.
Wanna bet?
At least it’s not Pablo
“After thinking about how we punished the Clippers, you still need to pay for the sins of Joe Smith”
Nah. Banning the advertising would be sufficient. The league could still collect their revenue.
But then you would have 100s of starving Pat McAfees who can no longer afford to feed their families when losing the main sponsors of their entire turdcast (DraftKings Thunderdome goes bye-bye)
Vampires can’t come inside unless you invite them in.
Too late tbh
It’s not just the NBA, i know people wanna blame the NBA and talk shit but it’s even gotten into esports and every thing now is fucked up with gambling being so easy to access on the internet, let alone actual sports which have always been very gamble friendly
It would need massive regulation and actual laws to stop this not just in America but world wide too because there’s so many gamble havens out there so i doubt that’s happening
Esports has been awful for gambling long before the current prediction market craze tbf. The skin gambling sites for csgo were a Wild West filled with 13 year olds
esports wouldnt survive without gambling sadly, stuff like the nba can easily survive without.
Funny, because that was the exact argiment the sports leagues used to petition the US and Canadian Governments to lessen the restrictions on gambling diring Covid. They claimed that they would not survive the gathering restrictions and needed gambling income to suppliment them.
Yes but now it’s way easier to actually access everything with the internet being way bigger, even compared to 10 years ago, like 4b more people have access to internet and everyone has a device on their pocket they can do this with
CS is a gamble haven, it’s been since skins were introduced
Easier to access, yes. But also easier to keep a teenager from accessing it. One of my buddy’s little brother was placing bets online at 14 years old. He literally gambled away his birthday money without his parent’s knowledge (fucking idiot).
There needs to be some balance between gambling and sports. I like that legal gambling makes it impossible for underage people to independently gamble, but the constant DK and FD commercials are overwhelming.
Shit, BW and SC2 got derailed in popularity mainly because of it. And in turn, severely hampered RTS games in general even though they are still somewhat popular nowadays in certain sections. But what RTS and its e-sports scene could have been without those scandals…
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Making it legal to sports gamble, but illegal to advertise would be glorious. Like cigarettes.
Fuck that, let’s take it a little further. Make it so you have to leave your house to do it by requiring going to a bar or casino or something that requires licensure. Ban it from being anywhere on sports broadcasts.
I cannot imagine being a gambling addict and having this shit constantly in your face, while also having the ability to do so constantly in your pocket.
Totally agree! I’m blessed with not too many vices, but I know I would LOVE sports betting. I tried $100 once, felt like garbage, recognized a path I could go down, and promptly got off and put myself on the 2 year ban list. It’s nasty stuff.
There’s also the fact that they will kill your account if you are a winner.
Either do this or ban it this is not that complicated
The simplest solution is to just go back to how it was previously where if you wanted to wager on sports you had to show up to a sportsbook/casino to place your bets
Having it available with the touch of a button on your phone is what’s killing us
So basically go back to what we had 6-7 years ago?
Even earlier tbh
With the internet growth this was always going to happen
Gambling was ruining sports long before people were aware of it.
Donaghy admitted to being compromised as far back as 2003.
As for esports, there were match fixing scandals as far back as 2010. (see- https://sg.news.yahoo.com/korea-league-legends-match-fixing-further-details-ahq-182825609.html)
Honestly this nonsense was probably happening decades before, gambling and organized crime has existed for centuries. It’s just not smart to take spectator sports seriously. The fact that gambling is more popular now should make it easier for people to understand what was already going on.
Gambling in sport has always been a thing tho, long before the internet. We just have tools that makes it much easier for the average person to put money into it and you can’t really make those tools disappear.
It’s not only that, it’s the advertisement, which is really most of the issue. If advertising was illegal then no one would really care.
Becoming legal in a bunch more states over the last decade didn’t help either.
Yeah it should juts be treated like cigarettes. They even managed to get it out of Nascar.
Yeah it was better when people had to physically go somewhere to place a bet. You can still ruin your life but at least it requires way more effort than going broke on your couch while smoking a bowl
Gambling has infested sports for 100 odd years now. Americans got mildly shielded from it but not really given… Donaghy.
Right well maybe it belongs in the shadows and not on every other advertisement on tv regardless of the programming you’re watching.
It was never on the shadows, idk if you were a kid. But sports globally is infested with gambling and has been forever.
Vegas odds have been pumped forever, betting sites major sponsors of varying teams across the world for decades now.
Its mildly more accessible to the average American. That’s it.
I remember watching a friend bet on CSGO games awhile back, dude hadn’t played in 5-10 years but was losing his shit over strangers fucking up the defuse.
Wild world we live in
It’s not just the NBA but Adam Silver and the NBA lead the way into the world of gambling as a profit model. He wrote the influential op Ed that started this whole thing:
https://time.com/3584866/nba-adam-silver-legalize-pro-sports-betting/
Esports is much worse than traditional sports with this, it probably drives over half of the viewership for most events besides majors and a large large portion of the sponsorship money.
Esports is bad but i wouldn’t say it’s much worse
You just have no idea how many sites that have nothing to do with the NBA have games to bet on that NBA can’t do shit about, not just in the US but everywhere and with crypto and everything
Esports might benefit from it more but sports have started to use that logic of “well they use our games and everything anyway might as well profit from this”
I just meant in terms of relative reliance on gambling as a means of surviving as a league and overall fan buy in. In absolute terms there is definitely more money wagered on traditional sports of course.
Oh for sure you’re 100% right about that, for example CS would be royally fucked without gambling sponsors
Traditional sports don’t need those as much with TV deals despite gambling on sports being such a tradition
Gambling cannot be allowed to sponsor and advertise. It needs regulated just like cigarettes.
Too late!
Fifteen years too late.
You sly dog! You got me monologuing!
Blame the Supreme Court.
Waaaaaay too late. This all started with the popularization of fantasy football and the rise of the big internet platforms. Legalized gambling was just a natural extension.
Been saying for a while this feels a lot like the opioid crisis. Like we will look back in a decade and wonder what the hell we where thinking alowing such easy acess to gambling. Though this might be worse since gambling addiction doesn’t really have many physical signs so addicts are able to dig a much deeper hole without anybody around them realizing.
There’s a silly sounding parable about stuff like this but it resonates.
Two men are traveling and come upon a fence blocking the way forward. The first man insists they tear it down to move ahead. The second man, the wiser one, asks why it was there in the first place.
There’s a very good reason gambling has been something we’ve essentially universally reviled as a species and have had guardrails against in some form for millennia. It’s a scourge.
Except everyone knew it was a bad idea to legalize betting the gambling companies just eventually infiltrated the regulators and undermined it intentionally
Add it to the list of reasons for a Butlerian Jihad
Can’t blame the sports leagues, blame the government. Sports gambling needs to be heavily regulated
I don’t think it’s entirely too late, but yes - it’s gotten to the point where it will need a massive push to reign in with how ubiquitous gambling is in… everything. That + financializing everything are going to be tougher and tougher to do anything about the longer we wait.
Yep it’s bad. My co-worker with 5 kids who is working the same shitty job I am is super into gambling because it’s the only thing that can supplement what he needs to make to handle all his financial business. He pieces them out strategically with different parlays in different sports and was telling me about how he’s recently started betting on professional matches in games like League and Counter Strike as well. To be fair it seems to work well enough for him so I’m not sure the level of restraint he practices, but I was shocked when he was telling me about getting involved in the e-sport gambling as well
what do you mean? I had to work hard to gamble online in the early 2000s. if it gambling can be legalized it can just as easily be illegalized.
It is an active effort by the 1% to extract the last bit of income out of the common man that they weren’t getting before. If people are so desperate to make money based on their supposed insight or luck just open up a fortune telling booth or claim to be a psychic, at least that way these fucking companies aren’t getting your money.
Jokes on them, the real sickos aren’t even watching the shit, they’re just gambling on it.
Why don’t the sickos do option trading instead of sports gambling
Wall St closes at 4pm
And?
The best gambles happen after hours lol.
I’m saying they do both, but one casino closes
brain damage
The actual answer is you need serious money to do that sports betting can be done with any denomination.
I knew a guy that gambled on Korean Baseball during a graveyard shift because that was the only available live games.
I did that during Covid
I had basically run out of financial options and used well, options trading and tailing sports twitters to bet on tennis and korean baseball. I made enough most months to break even or cover expenses.
I actually do prop betting on NBA at a profitable level but the first advice I give to others is not to do it, and I dont provide picks. I operate at about a 70% success level but that is still work, I spend time on it every day, bet every day, watch games. I started last year when I was out of work and it also helped pay bills.
But I can’t even imagine what minority percentage I am in. And for all I know I can start 0/10 this year and that’s that. So it goes.
But people are desperate.
Welp, there goes any national broadcast games for the T’Wolves
I know this is just a joke, but is there anybody who actually prefers their games being nationally broadcast? Assuming no issues with blackouts
Personally I very much enjoy when espn comes to town and malika does an underwater tap dance class with ant and we get to watch Stephen A do his walk into the building in a sick fit while showing off just how much he doesn’t watch our team
You had me in the first half.
i mean… malika and ant doing an underwater tap dance class sounds incredible????
I like having different people talk about my team sometimes. Get to hear outside the bubble. Sometimes they suck, sometimes they don’t
Yeah and I think more crews are solid than not. It’s hard to think of a truly bad crew other than I guess the Mark Jackson one.
Yes. I can’t afford to subscribe to the Warriors’ RSN and even if I could, our local broadcast team is awful.
lmao my first thought reading that comment was “probably warriors fans”
Bob fitzgerald is an embarrassment
I am an out of market fan who doesn’t want to pay for League Pass, so national games let me actually see the team.
Prefers is a strong word. Do I mind? Depends who has the game.
Obviously teams and players want nationally televised games, if nothing else it gives exposure and the opportunities to grow their brands. People don’t know who plays for the Kings because their never on tv. LeBron has insane marketing deals because he’s constantly on people’s screens
The national television crews covering the games ALSO don’t know who plays for the kings.
If it’s a good matchup then definitely, because it makes things feel more like a playoff game imo
I 100% prefer the local broadcast and attend at a good chunk of home games so it’s nice to get to hear them for away games
I’m good with that
I mean most ppl aren’t good with that, everyone complains how few national games their team has
I’ve always found this odd. I hate how many national TV games the Lakers have.
it is pretty funny watching the Wolves fans go through this in real time. For 15 years we hardly had any national tv games and tickets were dirt cheap because we sucked. Now that we are good enough to get a lot of national tv games and ticket prices going up because of interest in a good team, most of the complaints are that it is too expensive to be a fan of the team now.
read it again if you gotta
Ok, but I’m not most people. I usually can’t stand the national broadcasters and our local broadcasters are elite.
Unless it’s Grady on the national I could care less
Adam Silver keeping them in the West as punishment
That’s all we had to do to get Reggie miller off our broadcasts? Should’ve spoken out sooner
This message is brought to you by FanDuel….
Sounds like subliminal advertising for Cognizant. This makes me want to use some IT consultancy
Well there is an installment payment ad on the backdrop which is only marginally better.
What kills me is they advertise it very methodically and slowly then right at the end they speed run…
ifyouhaveagamblingproblemcallthisnumber (end commercial)
It’s like a “here, a disclaimer, damn!”
Well they just spent 55 seconds having some famous person tell you how cool gambling is, they can’t very well undo all of that in the last five!
I’m creating a futures market to evaluate the likelihood of him remaining against sports betting if anyone wants to join me.
and just to be clear, this is sports “trading” not gambling, so all good
Or as my state calls it, “a game of skill”
It’s finance. Like Wall Street.
we understand we’re destroying society but what good is society if we’re not maximizing free market profits?
we understand we’re destroying society
but what good is society if we’re not maximizing free market profits?
“Brought to you by LeBron James and Polymarket/DraftKings”
Peak capitalism
I remember a quote from Rob Manfred where he said that Adam Silver told him to stop talking about the pace of play “problem” in baseball because it was perfect for allowing betters to gamble on the results of individual pitches.
This message is brought to you by DraftKings
When every other ad is a sports gambling ad, I think we’ve past that point
We’re past the point of just gambling ads. Sports news sites devote sections just to betting. This generation is growing up with gambling being normalized as an integral part of the sports experience.
Ex: https://www.cbssports.com/betting/
I find myself shutting off podcasts when the first gambling ad comes on. Fuck that shit.
The fear for a long time has been fans becoming only fans of individual players. Turns out it’s fans not even knowing anything about players beyond what helps them make informed betting decisions. Incredibly bleak.
The fear for a long time has been fans becoming only fans of individual players
Hasn’t the NBA always been like that? At least as far back as Jordan, anyway?
The rest of your comment I agree with tho
True, but it’s definitely increased over the last two decades or so.
Y’all made a decision lol you’d rather take the money then care about the repercussions on society.
I don’t think any vices should be illegal or carte Blanche banned. But there has to be some kind of guardrails, and the absolute onslaught of gambling and prediction markets has gotten out of control.
I think a better way to think about it is corporations profiting off of addiction. If you’re against banning vices, fine, but we should tax the shit out the corporations doing it.
I just don’t think companies nor governments should be our parameters on morality.
Governments have set parameters on morality for like 4,000 years.
I said I don’t think this is my opinion. I do not believe that we should be looking at governments nor corporations to set the standards of societal moral standards/compass.
Yeah I think that’s a fair perspective, which is why it shouldn’t be about the gambler, per se. On the other hand, we know that these companies are ACTIVELY facilitating addiction - if banning it is out because we don’t want to ban based on morality, we should at least make it less profitable. It’s a public health issue.
It’s totally a public health issue now. There is zero friction to fucking over your life gambling on literally anything.
The problem isn’t even necessarily gambling but tying gambling to a corporation, an entity which has to increase profits endlessly. I used to play poker a ton, it’s gambling but it’s also a skill game, the room sizes shrink in regular casinos because slots that just drain people are more profitable. Same with shit like moving blackjack payouts to be 6⁄5 instead of 3⁄2. It’s not even just gambling which isn’t obv great for everyone but combining it with corps incessant need to increase profits is a recipe for disaster.
Who or what then? Religion is worse, it’s not even based on the current real world. If governments are not setting laws and enforcing them I doubt people are going to listen to philosophers to decide what they can do and cannot do.
If you’re asking me my ideal, government is meant to keep civility and integrity of our society. Ethics and morals is a personal choice, not something that should be dictated by government or business. Maybe for some it’s religion, but for most it’ll me a mix of different things.
The reason I say I don’t want a government or business to dictate morality is because it’s not something that can be quantified or scaled or measured.
There’s so much gray in these types of discussions that relying on government/business to dictate morality seems dangerous to me.
They don’t have to be, but if it’s going to be allowed, taxing it actually makes sense. Alcohol for example, creates greater needs for law enforement and EMS systems, so it should be heavily taxed to help pay for that additional burden.
Think ads for it should be banned. Let people find it if they so choose but shoving Kalshi and Polymarket down our throats is just not it
Yea mean we did it for cigarette ads back in the day, don’t see why gambling ads can’t be the same.
should be treated like cigarettes. get alcohol ads out of here as well.
100%. These are the types of companies you’re supposed to learn about from sketchy pop-ups and banner ads, not broadcast television.
Well that just won’t happen, try to find any NBA show, broadcast, or podcast that doesn’t have a gambling sponsor these days.
i dont think gambling should be banned across the board, but i think the apps should be illegal. if you want to bet, drive to the casino
They need to regulate player props. If you look at the data the majority of the bets these days are player props. The player props are also causing safety issues and concerns for the players themselves.
You have to be cognizant that that’s exactly what you’re doing
And that’s why he’s saying it out loud. He’s no idiot.
Tim Connelly is doing this?
This is all Tim Connelly’s fault.
Well he’s certainly not trying to stop it. This is an opportunistic fence-sitting platitude.
What could Tim Connelly do to stop it lol.
My point is he shouldn’t act all concerned when it’s clear that the concern is bullshit.
Real big “you critique society yet you participate in it, curious” comment
Yeah next thing you know the TWolves are gonna ink an arena naming rights deal with a sketchy crypto website or something. Nothing is sacred anymore
Target center is literally one of the worst arenas already. It could use some new sponsor money tbf
I was getting coffee yesterday and overheard two guys talking about their bets from the past weekend. One of the guys started talking about the Bills and the other dude cut him off and said “imma be honest, I can’t even watch football like that. I just like betting”
Agreed 100%.
There’s even people of my generation, Gen X, who play pick up basketball, have loyalties to teams, knows the nuances and appreciate the strategy and tactics, who now just watch for their bets.
I don’t even talk about the game itself bc all they talk about is their bets.
It’s sad really.
It’s happened for football for a long time now
It took a solid 1-2 years after quitting before I would feel anything watching a neutral game. And that’s as someone who is a massive sports fan in general.
This society is so fucked for generations.
A “W” for Mr.Connelly.
I think it’s pivotal/vital for high ranks execs,pres,owners to be outspoken about this shit.
I know it’s fools gambit trusting that to happen but it’s nice to see someone like Tim speak up.
Brought to you by Sezzle
Broke from gambling? No worries, pay for your groceries with high interest debt!
Good on him for taking a stand
I miss having Timmy C with the Nuggets. He’s genuinely a good dude.
Anyone who does sports betting past a friendly $50 with a pal or a fantasy league is a dumb degenerate loser. Big red flag that you’re really shit at math and logic.
Thats exactly whats happening.
Oh so having LeBron James out there as Joe Camel isn’t doing this?
Most heavy gamblers I know don’t even watch. There’s apps for that lmao
We’ve got a generation of kids where they’re gambling with dad, who subsidizes any losses. Obviously not all kids, but this is happening with a lot of them. They only know what a win feels like and they’re getting that experience during their most formative years.
I think an Atlantic article said over half of all 11yo American boys have bet on sports.
It’s already an epidemic and it’ll get worse and worse.
Oh, trust me… the league IS AWARE.They just don’t give a fuck as long as the league continues to generate revenue.
Greed is really going to topple a lot of long-established institutions and we’re here to see it.
But they are doing exactly that. The NBA and other sports leagues are literally advertising and marketing gambling to children that watch these games. What do they think is happening?
Too late
He’s not cognizant that he’s developing a generation of people that only watch sports to gamble.
I’m gonna be brutally honest about the things I’m seeing and what I myself have experienced:
Today’s youth is so incredibly overrun with media and digital stimuli that just sitting down and watching a sports game is actually just way too boring for them. Placing a bet keeps things interesting.
Yup. And it’s not just people under 30, it includes a lot of people older than that. They can’t sit still for an entire game, or an entire movie. Try to make any of them sit in a chair and watch a game or a movie for two hours without looking at their phone. They couldn’t do it.
This question is being asked to the wrong person.
It was asked to Silver and he gave a diplomatic good answer about regulating it and saying he’s not a fan, even if you asked Silver it doesn’t change anything it’s a bigger problem than just the NBA
I have no idea what you’re trying to say here. It being a bigger problem than just the NBA doesn’t mean the NBA has no autonomy or say in how they treat gambling.
Adam silver is making the call as we speak
Far too late man
Bill Simmons is to blame for americas downfall!
So they don’t want to end up like the NFL?
Bit late for all that bud
I’m so thankful that sports betting never hooked me. It’s strange that it didn’t, as everything else seems to get me in its clutches with ease.
I’m not tempting fate and trying it again. The ads don’t tempt me, but they do annoy me.
What about those of us that don’t gamble? Why do I have to see that bullshit all the time now?
They married a vice to our sports. I much prefer it just being sports.
Gambling sponsors go hand in hand with companies like sezzle that let you take out a loan to pay back with interest so you can go gamble faster.
Anyone check on Tim lately? He probably can’t breath well with his head that deep in the sand.
The claims of the league’s officiating, outcomes and draft being rigged are shifting away from random fans stating this and from people speaking anonymously that work inside the front offices.
well it is and its gonna get worse
Uhhhh, NOW you’re concerned?
Where was this dude when sports was getting in bed with gambling companies?
You’re about 6 years too late there, pal.
I know it can be easy to miss the title and the logos in the background, but he’s actually a team gm, not the nba commissioner.
Thought this was Joe Ingles for the first second lol
Genuinely surprised he’d say this when the owners that pay him make so much off of it. Ik he one of the best gm’s in the league but damn good for him speaking his mind
i dont give a shit about the nba, they are gonna be vaping by tomorrow. I hope your moral holes are guarded because they are gonna try to fuck em
What does he mean? We’re NOT developing a generation of people only watching the NBA to gamble. Thats correct, right? What’s the issue?