Sportsmen in the Gambling Industry

Sports gambling gets a bad rap. Politicians complain of the hazards, players moan about the conditions, and all college and pro leagues tend to take the same hypocritical stance. “Gambling is bad, mmm-kay? Send us our cut please, though.”

Yet gambling isn’t the scourge on sports that it has been made out to be. Quite the opposite in fact. Betting action can help keep an event upright. Horse trainers and jockeys would be poor people if it wasn’t for racebooks. Cricket might go the way of croquet.

Curling held its World Championships in Las Vegas this year. The Roaring Game received a tremendous boost as tourists realized they had a big craps table (of sorts) on ice to go crazy betting on. That kind of trend does more than sell bet slips. It sells tickets.

Jai’Alai fans know what would happen if sports gambling stopped. Most Jai-Alai venues exist inside of casinos these days. The fronton would be gone-gone.

In the past, many athletes, coaches, and owners who became involved in the gaming industry have been looked down on for it. But with society now on a steady trek toward legalization of sports betting, perhaps they’ve all been ahead of their time.

Here are a few sportsmen who dared to bridge the gaming gap before it was fashionable.

Terrell Owens

6-time Pro Bowler “T.O.” has the 2^nd highest amount of receiving yards and the 3rd highest number of receiving touchdowns in NFL history. Owens played for the Philadelphia Eagles, Dallas Cowboys, Buffalo Bills, and Cincinnati Bengals.

His impressive accomplishments earned him a spot in the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2018. They also just might make him the most talented athlete ever to get involved in gambling – on the business end anyway.

Alongside more than 20 other NFL players, Owens could be facing disciplinary action by the league for his part in an Alabama bingo gambling facility that was slated to open in 2016.

Owens and the other NFL investors, including Gerald Warren, Santonio Holmes, Adalius Thomas, and Santana Moss to name a few, contributed nearly $20 million to the project. Floyd Mayweather Jr. chipped in as well.

Known as Center Stage, the establishment utilized electronic bingo games that gave the appearance of slot-machines, a violation of Alabama state law. Owens is accused of committing a violation of NFL rules that prohibit an employee of the league to have a connection to any gambling organization or establishment.

Active players may be ordered to cut ties with Center Stage. But Terrell Owens isn’t really an employee of the league any more, is he?

Don King

For more than thirty years, Don King has reigned supreme as the top boxing promoter in the country, staging more than 500 world championship fights. He has promoted events featuring many of boxing’s greats, including Roberto Duran, Mike Tyson, Joe Frazier, George Foreman, Muhammad Ali, Evander Holyfield, and Sugar Ray Leonard.

Las Vegas and prizefighting have always been a natural fit. The popularity of boxing in the desert and on the east coast led King to partner with several casinos in Las Vegas and Atlantic City. This partnership helped to solidify both gambling meccas as the most visited entertainment locales in the world, and several of King’s Las Vegas events shot onto most-watched PPV and live event lists.

Don King fights were a boon to the casinos that hosted the events, including Caesars Palace, Mandalay Bay Resort and the MGM Grand. By the 21^st century, the take-no-prisoners King had collected so many enemies that his name became synonymous with dirty dealing.

But there’s no denying that the collaboration between boxing promoter and casino-hotels helped to establish Vegas as a live sports destination and not just a gambling town.

Leon Shepard

Professional Jai-Alai competitor Leon Shepard has been described as the last American taking part in a dying tradition. But Jai-Alai lives on in frontons built into the backs of casinos.

The sport has a long and illustrious history, dating back centuries to its origin in the foothills along the border between France and Spain. Even then, spectators placed wagers on the outcomes of games.

Fast forward to the early-to-mid 1900s, and jai alai had become a popular spectator sport in the United States, with many cities erecting large frontons with private and civic funds. But by the 1990s, only a few remained.

Today, jai alai is alive and kicking thanks to gambling. Players like Shepard have become casino employees, competing in front of very few spectators who don’t have money laid down.

Shepard earns a base paycheck plus bonuses for winning, a percentage of the casino’s slot machine revenue, and fine accommodations around the practice facility. The latter, of course, is almost any gambling locale’s specialty. It’s a far better quality of life than a semi-pro Jai-Alai league based in Delaware would afford.

Mark Cuban

Hoping to cash in on the burgeoning Esports industry, the owner of the Dallas Mavericks recently invested $7 million into a startup company that united gambling with the competitive video game circuit. The Seattle-based group, Unikrn (pronounced Unicorn), is co-founded by Voodoo PC gaming creator Rahul Sood.

Cuban saw a televised interview in which Sood explained the premise of Unikrn, and the Shark Tank star immediately wanted in on the action. Cuban had already been eying professional esports for a while, or so he claims.

The 18-year NBA owner bought a majority stake in the Dallas Mavericks from Ross Perot in 2000 and has increased the franchise’s value and revenue. With video gaming reaching unheard-of levels of mainstream popularity, the ability to place wagers on the outcomes of tournaments could be an ideal merger of sports and technology for Cuban to take to the next level. Perhaps his gambling enterprise will experience the same upward trend as the Mavericks organization.

Pete Rose

You pretty much knew we couldn’t skip Pete Rose, right?

Famously banned from baseball for placing bets on the game while a player and a manager, Charlie Hustle played in the MLB from 1963 to 1986, then managed for another 5 years. Despite his 17 All-Star appearances, Rose’s name will never appear in the Baseball Hall of Fame due to his illegal sports gambling convictions. He was barred from baseball in the 90s. But Rose wasn’t finished with the industry – in fact, he finally learned to make money from it.

In 2016, Rose poked fun at his own reputation by appearing in a post-Super Bowl ad for William Hill’s sports betting app made for smartphones. The spot also featured Oscar Goodman, former mayor of Las Vegas, who many refer to as a “mob lawyer” for his numerous deals in the gambling world.

In the commercial, Goodman is shown surrounded by Vegas showgirls, demonstrating how the app works. Rose coyly asks, “Are you sure this won’t get me into any trouble?” Goodman responds, “It’s okay to bet on baseball.”

Maybe it is for ordinary blokes in 2018. (Depends on the state they live in.) But not for managers of the Cincinnati Reds in 1990.

Conclusion: Let’s Honor the Pioneers

During the NFL lockout of 2011, former middle linebacker Ray Lewis took criticism for saying that the lack of pro football would lead to increased violence. The media reacted as though Lewis was saying gangs and criminals would unleash the aggression they normally spend on watching football. The outspoken All-Pro sounded plum ridiculous by the time CNN finished with his quotes.

Except what Lewis was really saying (being an employee of NFL Network he couldn’t explicitly spell it out) was that without the gaming dollars produced by the NFL season, thousands of people in cities like Vegas, Atlantic City, even Silicon Valley would be out of jobs, leading to discord and in-fighting. Small-time black market bookies would eat each other for dinner.

Owners and players settled their dispute and held the season and the Super Bowl, saving the wealth of Las Vegas… until 2018 when the Vegas Golden Knights redistributed it back to the betting public and demolished several hotel-casinos in a single stroke.

I’m kidding. Maybe.

Like it or not, gambling has become a crucial profit hub that helps to drive sports and games around the world. Prohibitions are harmful and pointless. It’s wise of the U.S. government to start swimming with the current.

Who knows, maybe the next American celebrity who invests in sports gambling will be hailed as a sexy kingpin…now that it’s legal.