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National Basketball Association criticisms and controversies

Embracing NBA Sports Betting
Prior to the 2010s, the NBA was particularly sensitive to gambling due to violations in the mid 2000s by Tim Donaghy. However, since the 2010s the NBA's position on sports betting has changed significantly.

The NBA, along with the NFL, MLB, NHL and the U.S. Justice Department brought litigations against the State of New Jersey to stop the legalization of sports betting in 2012. They argued that New Jersey's plan was in direct violation of the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (PASPA). In 2018, the Court ruled that PASPA was unconstitutional in the U.S. Supreme Court decision Murphy v. NCAA. Due to this ruling on PASPA, it allowed all 50 states to choose whether they would legalize sports betting. As of January 2023, Washington D.C. and 36 other states have legalized sports betting with 3 states in the process of legalizing it currently.

Adam Silver, the current NBA Commissioner, held a important role in the eventual legalization of sports betting in many states. In a surprising op-ed for The New York Times in 2014, Silver wrote about the idea of legalizing and regulating sports betting. Although he was the commissioner of the NBA at the time when litigations were brought against the State of New Jersey, his stance in the op-ed argued that sports betting should be allowed on a federal level as long as the states comply with strict rules. He acknowledged that it was an untapped business that was thriving without any regulation or oversight. Some regulations that Silver proposed included minimum-age verification methods and methods to keep people with gambling addiction from being able to bet on games. Silver and the NBA's leadership team largely viewed sports betting as something that was a potential positive, especially in the case where there would be uniform laws across all 50 states.

In 2019, the NBA signed a multi-year deal with the Las Vegas based MGM Resorts to make them the official gaming partner of the NBA and WNBA. This allowed the NBA to negotiate new deals with other sports operators that operate in both states that have already legalized sports betting and those that have not. Since 2019, the NBA also signed betting data partnerships with both Sportradar and Genius Sports which in turn has generated extra revenue for owners and players.