After years of fighting legal sports betting, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell recently changed his stance on the issue. Until now, the league had been concerned that expanding sports gambling would result in attempts to fix games for wagering purposes. Now, they’ve essentially embraced it and have moved to forge data arrangements with operators.
Legal sports betting is now available in many states, including Pennsylvania where retail and online sportsbooks opened after the Supreme Court’s PASPA ruling. The state’s first sportsbook was launched in November 2021, and SugarHouse, DraftKings, FanDuel, BetRivers, and BetMGM have all gone live since then.
Colorado voters approved sports betting in 2019 and the first retail sportsbooks opened in early 2020. Online sportsbooks began rolling out in January 2022, and as many as 25 sites are permitted under state law.
PHILLIPS: It’s a huge change for the league, and I can understand why they went from being afraid of this to being all about it. But they also have to be careful about this. They don’t want to end up a little bit like the NBA where there are allegations that they’re rigging games for betting.
The other big thing is, they’re getting a lot of pressure from the public to make sure that the betting odds are accurate. So, they’re going to have to do a lot of testing and work with their partners to see what the best way is for them to deliver this information.