US Sports betting in states outside of Nevada may be nearing reality. But that doesn’t mean it will be a business success.
Even as major professional sports leagues like the National Basketball Association open their eyes to the multibillion-dollar opportunity with the sports wager industry, their ideas on how to get a piece of the action may impede the ability to attract gamblers away from illegal betting and offshore markets.
The NBA, in particular, is being “short-sighted” in requesting a 1 percent cut on all bets, says Twitter v.p. of Analytics Jeff Ma.
Ma, who was one of the leaders of the infamous MIT blackjack team which inspired the book Bringing Down the House and the film 21, is a well-known expert in the gambling industry. He also understands the inner workings of professional sports leagues — he previously served as a consultant for the Portland Trail Blazers of the NBA and the San Francisco 49ers of the NFL.
“Traditionally, a lot of the leagues are run by lawyers so they think about how do we protect our assets, they don’t think about how do we monetize our assets,” Ma told CNBC at the recent MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference. “In this case, they are thinking protect and charge people money instead of focusing on the bigger opportunity down the road.”
More on US sports betting at CNBC
