This article was originally published in AP News.
Gambling has gone from the forbidden topic in the NFL to a key part of the league’s present and future.
The days of lobbying against widespread legalized sports betting, preventing broadcast partners from even discussing point spreads and even prohibiting players from holding a fantasy football convention because it was at a casino are firmly in the past.
With a team playing in Las Vegas just a short walk from the casinos on The Strip, sponsorship deals with gambling companies who pay millions for in-game advertisements and teams having sports books next to their stadiums, the relationship between America’s richest sports league and gambling is stronger than ever.
“The NFL has evolved quickly with the growing importance of sports betting on the overall ecosystem,” said Robert Fishman, a senior analyst with MoffettNathanson, a division of SVB Securities.
“Sports betting is continuing to grow in importance and will continue to be a driver of growth. We’re still in the very early days and there will be a natural evolution of how this continues to grow.”
The growth has been astronomical already since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (PASPA) in 2018, setting the stage for legalized sports betting to spread outside Nevada to most of the rest of the country.
More than 30 states and Washington, D.C., allow sports betting either online or in person with several more set to join them in the next few years.
The NFL is doing its best to capitalize on that just a handful of years after Commissioner Roger Goodell sent a letter to the court considering the overturning of PASPA that said sports betting “threatens to damage irreparably the integrity of, and public confidence in, NFL football.”
