Exclusive: Hall of Famer Cris Carter Gets Honest About NFL’s Stance on Gambling
· Yahoo Sports
The National Football League has become one of the greatest bastions of sports gambling in recent years, so much so that fans now often cite concerns of conflicting interest. Once the league officially acquired a 10% stake in ESPN, which hosts its own betting platform that allows for direct betting on NFL games, those fears only worsened.
Nevertheless, one of the most notable wide receivers in history, NFL Hall of FamerCris Carter, believes that it is simply a symptom of the times in which we live, and that the adoption of gambling by all professional sporting leagues, not just the NFL, was perhaps always inevitable.
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In a 1989 interview, the NFL’s former Director of Security, Warren Welsh, took the stance of believing that “most of our fans go to watch the ball game and couldn’t care less about the point spread.” The former FBI agent also questioned, “Why use the National Football League to promote betting?”
“We just don’t like it,” Welsh once stated. “We certainly encourage new fans to come our way, but we certainly don’t need new bettors.”
According to Carter, it may be a bit “unfair” to pin that quote on Welsh specifically, as the amount of change that has occurred not just in football, but in American politics as a whole, is more to blame than any sense of hypocrisy on the NFL’s behalf. “I don’t think it’s being hypocritical,” Carter noted in an exclusive interview.
“The NFL, just like any other business, when you look into the future, and you see, based on legislation, governing bodies, they’ve totally changed. To me, gambling is like cannabis. If you go look at articles on cannabis from 30 years ago, you would sound like a dinosaur, too. It’s any technology. AI, anything,” he outlined.
In other words, businesses will fill the opportunistic gaps that are left behind by changes in policy. In fact, it’s their obligation. So instead of getting upset at the NFL or NBA for recommending player props during their broadcasts, it’s likely that fans would be better off writing a strongly worded letter to their local representatives.
“If people can show me that fans are going to grow, and I can protect the integrity of the game, then yes, I’d be open to it. But in 1989, no one knew those things were going to be available,”Carter added. The only issue, however, is that, at least as far as the NBA is concerned, the integrity of the game hasn’t been completely protected.
When asked if he ever worries about the director of the FBI coming out and announcing that multiple NFL players have been caught betting the same way in which NBA players have, Carter suggested that, while it is a concern, it’s not worth comparing the two, given their sheer amount of differences.
“It’s harder to manage the NBA,” he admits.
“Players can affect the game offensively and defensively. You only have 12 players on a team, the coach is only playing 8 to 10 players, so the ability to make someone get involved is a lot easier to do with the NBA,” he explained, and added why the NBA can control gambling more easily.
“They should’ve eliminated a lot of the prop bets… Limit the prop bets to big games and I think that will help, but they’ve still grown the interest of the game… When you’re opening up the world of gambling, to think that they were going to get it right the first time, that’s just unrealistic. Just totally unrealistic.”
Earlier, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell addressed the concerns of gambling and outlined that the league has “strict rules to address any such issues.”
This exclusive interview was brought to you by TheSportsRush, working in tandem withConnectingBrands.co.uk.
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