Sports and gambling | Local | dailyadvance.com – The Daily Advance

Sports and gambling. When I grew up it was sports versus gambling. Sports seemed pure and it did all it could to keep gambling from contaminating it.

Eventually I came to realize that these two things coexisted in harmony with one another so long as those in control of them were never in the same room at the same time. Sports has been historically terrified of gambling while gambling has always loved sports but in the end, they benefited from each other.

Thats the way it used to be but the landscape of sports is changing. Dont get me wrong, sports is still terrified of gambling but its a potential revenue source they are choosing not to ignore any more. The change is slow but apparent.

Watch the worldwide leader in sports and look on the ticker or to the side of the screen and youll see the betting lines on tonights games. Listen to SportsCenter and catch how many references you hear to sports gambling.

My inspiration, muse and the wind beneath my wingsDan LeBatard recently helped to form a content creation company called Meadowlark Media and they just got a three-year deal from Draft Kings worth fifty million dollars.

I listen to his podcasts and when he was on ESPN, I listened to and watched his shows. For many months I have been hearing Draft Kings commercials and like all advertisements, its important to listen carefully when they talk real fast.

Turns out that while Draft Kings has spent a massive sum of money making sure that everyone in the country knows about their product, theyre only available to citizens in a handful of states. Using Draft Kings is illegal in most of the country.

Why do you think they would invest so much in a region with no customers?

In my honest opinion, its an attempt to normalize sports gambling. They are trying to change minds.

Thats something many fans are apprehensive of. Baseball purist will tell you its about protecting the integrity of the sport. They will tell you that men like Pete Rose tarnished the game of baseball. To my knowledge, no one has even pointed to a game or moment in a game and accused Pete Rose of cheating but for the integrity of the game, he is out of baseball forever. We dont know if he cheated but we knew he did something he was told not to do.

Meanwhile men like Alex Rodriguez and others who admitted to cheating the game are essentially forgiven and welcomed back into the league.

I dont know who is right and who is wrong but I sure do see a lot in the way of hand picking how the integrity of the game is protected and MLB is not alone in that. The NBA and NFL have their own rich history of hypocrisy.

I dont know what sports is going to look like 10 years from now but it appears that gambling is going to be a part of it.

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Sports and gambling | Local | dailyadvance.com - The Daily Advance