NEW YORK, NY - OCTOBER 25: Adam Silver (L), Deputy Commissioner of the NBA, speaks to the media following the NBA Board of Governors Meeting, during which Commissioner David Stern (R) outlined his plans to step down in February 2014 and nominate Silver as his successor, at the St. Regis hotel on October 25, 2012 in New York City. NOTE TO USER: User expressly acknowledges and agrees that, by downloading and/or using this Photograph, user is consenting to the terms and conditions of the Getty Images License Agreement. (Photo by Alex Trautwig/Getty Images)

Sports leagues eat up public attention for many reasons, but at least some of their popularity is due to the fact that people bet on them. These wagers take many forms — legal ones, fantasy leagues, etc. — and it's not always clear if the ability to bet comes before or after genuine interest in a sport. What's not up for much debate, however, is the idea that introducing financial stakes to a game makes fans more interested in the outcome.

In the United States, sports betting is legal in only a few forms, most obviously in Nevada. Yet several states have attempted to introduce sports gambling laws, including in New Jersey, which had a law signed by Governor Chris Christie in 2012 only for the NBA and other leagues and organizations to file an as-yet successful federal lawsuit against the bill.

When the NBA pushed against that law, David Stern was the league's commissioner. At Thursday,'s Bloomberg Sports Business Summitt in New York, the his successor Adam Silver gave the gambling a world a sign that he has more ambivalent opinions on the matter. From Mason Levinson and Scott Soshnick for Bloomberg (via EOB):

“It’s inevitable that, if all these states are broke, that there will be legalized sports betting in more states than Nevada and we will ultimately participate in that,” said Silver, 52.

Silver, who has been with the NBA for 22 years and replaced former Commissioner David Stern in February, said that he doesn’t have any moral issue with sports betting. The league, which already allows teams to create marketing deals with casinos, would further profit from the legalization of sports wagering outside Nevada, he said.

“If you have a gentleman’s bet or a small wager on any kind of sports contest, it makes you that much more engaged in it,” Silver said. “That’s where we’re going to see it pay dividends. If people are watching a game and clicking to bet on their smartphones, which is what people are doing in the United Kingdom right now, then it’s much more likely you’re going to stay tuned for a long time.”

David Purdum of ESPN.com has the prior quotes from Stern, which are considerably more negative:

It's a change in tune for the NBA, which in 2012 joined the NCAA, NFL, MLB and NHL in suing New Jersey over its efforts to bring legalized sports betting to its casinos and race tracks. During deposition testimony in the New Jersey case, former NBA commissioner David Stern scolded Gov. Chris Christie for his efforts.

"The one thing I'm certain of is New Jersey has no idea what it's doing and doesn't care because all it's interested in is making a buck or two," Stern said in November 2012, according to court documents. "They don't care that it's at our potential loss."

Silver can hold his own opinion on the matter and has proven to think differently than Stern on several issues so far in his tenure as commissioner, so the mere fact that he disagrees is not a major story. What is startling is the extent to which Silver accepts the idea of legal sports gambling. It would have been very easy for him to state that the NBA would await Christie's Supreme Court challenge to the ruling in favor of sports leagues and would address the issue when it became more immediate. For that matter, he could have said that the NBA would work with New Jersey if the ruling said sports gambling was legal in the state. Instead, Silver stated that widespread sports gambling was inevitable — far from a sure thing given past rulings and continued moral opposition — and that the league will become more popular when it finally happens. His comments don't even read as a conservative positive answer, which is more in keeping with what we expect to hear from commissioners.

It's possible that Silver simply understands that the NBA is an increasingly global league that stands to benefit from welcoming the habits of international fans. Sports gambling is big business around the world, with many major soccer clubs going so far as to put betting organizations on their jerseys as their most prominent sponsors. Silver might go too far in claiming that these same practices are inevitable in the United States, but it's probably true that the majority of American fans would accept legal betting without many reservations. Silver could merely have reached a fairly common conclusion in business — that the potential benefits of getting ahead of other leagues in this area outweigh the backlash.

Story continues