Should New York State Approve Gambling on the NBA?

Since he took over as commissioner of the NBA, Adam Silver has tried to stay ahead of the curve when it comes to sports gambling. Other professional leagues like the NFL seem determined to keep its collective head buried in the sand, not willing to acknowledge the world of betting that exists around football. The NBA is different. Thankfully.

On Wednesday in Albany, NBA attorney Dan Spillane pitched the proposal to legalize betting on basketball to the State Senate Committee on Racing, Gaming and Wagering. It's a proposal under which the NBA would receive 1% of all bets placed on games.

Plenty of this hinges on a current case in New Jersey being considered by the U.S. Supreme Court which challenges the 1992 federal ban on sports betting in all but 4 states (Nevada, Delaware, Montana and Oregon).

I'm all for legalizing sports gambling in New York, New Jersey, wherever and I'm not even a gambler. My thought is on how this could help taxpayers in the state and back to getting away from the 'head-in-the-sand' syndrome, not only should we acknowledge and embrace sports betting, we should capitalize on it.

Senator Jim Tedisco, who represents parts of Saratoga, Schenectady, Herkimer counties and all of Fulton and Montgomery counties, joined Big Board Sports to talk about the possibility of legalizing sports gambling in New York: