Marshall Univ. AD Mike Hamrick said the rise of legalized sports gambling makes him "nervous" and claims many other ADs throughout the country "feel the same way." Hamrick spoke to CBS' "60 Minutes" about the issue and said he has more concerns now than in the past because it is now "right in front of my face." CBS' Jon Wertheim noted Hamrick has "had to build an entire infrastructure, adding staff to monitor and protect his athletes." Hamrick admitted there are "people that will do what they need to do to make a buck at the expense of an 18 or 19-year-old kid." He said, "They can be compromised. Our job is to make sure they're not." Wertheim noted proponents of legalized sports gambling believe "moving this into the sunlight is going to decrease risk, not increase it." Hamrick countered that point by saying, "I don't buy that. ... It's gambling. It can be handled to a certain extent, but nobody can sit here and tell you that they can deal with this and be 100% clean." Hamrick added, “I don't want to sit here and tell you we're going to try to scare our student-athletes into not gambling, but we are."
BETTER TO BE INVOLVED: NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said there is "no doubt there's a business component" to his league's efforts around sports betting because data shows that when fans "bet on a game, even a small bet, they're much more likely to engage in that match." Silver: "They're much more likely to watch it. They're more likely to watch it for more minutes. They're more likely to be interested in the participants and to follow the sport." Silver also said legalizing sports gambling "decreases risk dramatically" because leagues then have "access to the betting information." Silver: "When you have an underground business operating in the shadows, you have no idea what people are betting on your own events" (“60 Minutes,” CBS, 3/24).
