In June 2015, less than two years before the NFL would approve the Raiders’ relocation to Las Vegas in a near-unanimous vote, the league took its last foolish stand in a failing battle against sports betting.

The inaugural National Fantasy Football Convention was scheduled a month later. Along with organizer and Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo, more than 100 NFL players were slated to appear. With fantasy football’s popularity surging, the star-studded event would be a one-of-a-kind chance for fans to engage with their favorite players.

Until the NFL shut it down.

The league claimed that involvement in any event on a casino property – even at the Sands Expo Center, where no gambling would take place – was a violation of its rule against players associating with sports betting, a rule it has gone to serious lengths to protect. Even as 28 of its 32 teams signed deals worth as much as $7 million with FanDuel and DraftKings that season, the NFL, according to an ongoing lawsuit against the league, had the gall to call players and threaten suspensions if they participated. Amid intense pressure, the event was cancelled.

This hypocritical stance on gambling was hardly a new one for America’s most powerful – and profitable – sports league. For years, the NFL has denied its secret affair with sports betting, privately reaping the fan engagement benefits while publicly maintaining that gambling is an affront to the league’s integrity.

Since the 1970s, when NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle first publicly opposed gambling, the NFL has treated Las Vegas like the plague, turning down its bid to host the Pro Bowl in 2013 and refusing to air Super Bowl ads promoting the city. For decades, to this day, the NFL even prohibited its officials from visiting Vegas during the season.

But no longer. Following Monday’s 31-1 vote, the Raiders are now destined to play in a state-of-the-art football mecca in the Nevada desert, built with $750 million in public money. The cash, it turns out, was far more than Oakland could offer. But just enough, apparently, for the NFL to sell out on its years-long false crusade against gambling.

“This is further evidence that the myth that legalized sports betting somehow hurts the game is nothing more than fake news,” Joe Asher, CEO of bookmaker William Hill, said on Monday in a statement on the Raiders’ move.

The NFL will eventually be forced to confront its public distaste for gambling. Commissioners in the NBA, MLS, and MLB have all spoken in favor of legalized sports betting. Even Goodell, in an interview with MMQB.com, agreed that society’s feelings about gambling are “evolving.”

It was his most progressive comments on sports betting yet; though, that’s not saying much. But make no mistake, the Raiders’ move is a first step toward the NFL acknowledging that gambling isn’t among the top 100 reasons the league lacks integrity. Still, as momentum grows for legalization, Goodell continues to cling, at least publicly, to the outdated sentiment that gambling is a menace to the pure, blue-blooded American values of the clean-cut, conservative NFL.

(Insert laugh track here.)

“(The NFL) is not changing our position as it relates to legalized sports gambling,” Goodell said. “We still don’t think it is a positive thing. We want to make sure that the integrity of our game is the primary concern and we do everything possible to protect that.

This contention, of course, is ridiculous. Whether gambling is legal or not, it is happening, and there’s little that can change that. Period. Given the vast, unregulated nature of the offshore betting market, the only way to ensure the “integrity of our game” would be to legalize sports betting. That way, betting lines could be monitored, regulators could follow up on irregular betting patterns, and if necessary, certain games could be taken off the board.

Last year, according to the American Gaming Association, the illegal sports betting market was estimated at an absurd $150 billion. Just a small slice of that pie would mean a whole of money stuffed into the pockets of Goodell’s 32 bosses.

And ultimately, that’s why the NFL will change its tune on sports betting. Not because logic suggests it or fans like it or or other leagues support it, but because its owners will someday envision the fat stacks of cash they’d collect in casino licensing deals and decide they’ve seen the light, just as they did with the Raiders’ move.

Federal movement on legalized sports betting has been slow, but advocates believe, with the growing support at the league level and the election of a former casino owner and opponent of regulation to the presidency, a repeal of the Professional and Amateur and Sports Protection Act (PASPA), could be imminent. Pennsylvania and Maryland have already passed laws in support of sports betting legalization, while South Carolina, West Virginia, New York, and Michigan are considering legislation.

“Momentum is building,” says Erik Balsbaugh, the VP of Public Affairs at the American Gaming Association. “But the NFL is a major player. Their opinion carries a lot of weight.”

At this week’s league meetings in Phoenix, as owners approved a new NFL home in the country’s gambling capital, there was barely any chatter about sports betting. The implications of such a move were clear. And yet, no one seemed to mind.

No one but Roger Goodell, who continues to double down, even with no cards left to play.

Contact the writer: rkartje@scng.com