by David Purdum, ESPN
The NBA is not the only professional league in the United States taking a close look at sports-betting legalization.
“I have talked to the commissioners in the other leagues about [legalizing sports betting],” NBA commissioner Adam Silver said in an exclusive interview with ESPN The Magazine in late January at the league’s Manhattan office. “I leave it to them to make any public statements they want to make on it. I will say that certainly all of them are interested in having a better understanding of the issue, and I know have assigned people in their organizations to study intensively the issue as well.”
In addition to the conversations between the commissioners, there have been other private meetings between counsel for the leagues to discuss the pros and cons of legalization, multiple sources with direct knowledge told ESPN.
While discussions are ongoing behind the scenes, Silver is the only active commissioner to publicly support legalization. He wrote an op-ed in The New York Times in November that called for Congress to create a federal framework and allow states to authorize betting on pro sports.
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