NBA All-Star: Fans Harsher After Sports Betting Legalization, 'I'm a Prop'

NBA All-Star Tyrese Haliburton decried the rise of legalized sports betting in the United States, lamenting how it has made fans of the game much harsher.

“To half the world, I’m just helping them make money on DraftKings or whatever. I’m a prop,” the Indiana Pacers star said to reporters earlier this week. “That’s what my social media mostly consists of.”

Haliburton added that he “doesn’t give a fuck” when someone tells him they lost money due to his performance. Despite that, he still has been seeing a sports psychologist “the last couple years” to deal with the harsher fan backlash he sees.

“It’s been good. I mean, even when I’m not [struggling], I think there has to be conversations at other times, too, because it’s obvious that what happens on the court is happens on the court…” he said, “It’s important, I think, for us as basketball players, as men, to get those things out because not everybody cares to hear how we feel…

“I think it’s important for us to have somebody to talk to… I do think that it’s important for us to just have conversations with people who really value who we are as human beings,” he added.

As many as 37 states and Washington, D.C., have legalized sports betting in the past six years. In 2023, the U.S. sports betting industry pulled in revenues of $10.9 billion, a nearly 45 percent increase from the previous year. The annual annual report of the American Gaming Association (AGA) showed that $120 billion was wagered last year, a 30 percent increase from 2022. Per USA Today Sports:

In 2022, the American sports betting industry took in $7.5 billion in revenue and slightly more than $93 billion was wagered, according to the AGA.

The AGA reported the overall growth in sports betting revenue was “largely fueled by continued maturation across most existing markets as well as several new markets, particularly in Massachusetts and Ohio.’’

Last year, Ohio made almost $937 million and Massachusetts took in $483 million, according to the AGA.

The top state for sports betting remains New York, pulling in $1.7 billion in revenue last year, followed by New Jersey and Illinois, which both pulled in $1 billion. The state of Nevada ranked 10th with $480 million from sports betting.

“For overall gaming, Nevada is still the largest market. For sports betting, states with broader mobile options come in higher,” said Cait DeBaun, the AGA’s Vice President of Strategic Communications & Responsibility.

As Breitbart News reported, a new study recently showed that the gambling boom in the state of New Jersey has been hurting the state’s economy. Last year, sports betting and internet gambling set new records in the Garden State, earning more than $171.5 million in revenue from online table games and slot machines. In comparison, the casinos and horse tracks took an estimated $1.62 billion in horse betting revenue. Despite the impressive gains, new research shows that the upside has just as steep a downside.

“New Jersey, which led the charge for mobile sports betting’s legalization, has received hundreds of millions of dollars in taxes from the sector. But economists cautioned that the cost of higher problem gambling rates could be ‘roughly equal’ to the state’s takings,” reported The Guardian.

New Jersey’s digital gambling surge has also seen a drop in jobs and wages. The Campaign for Fairer Gambling found that the $2.4 billion spent on gambling led to a $180 million decrease in New Jersey’s economic activity. The study discovered that the money would have been better spent on other economic activities like shopping or dining, leading to an increase in wages that could have been spent in other parts of the state’s economy.

“The online gambling sector paid some $110m in wages to New Jersey employees in 2022, according to NERA, generating $22m in new spending across the state’s economy. Had another recreational activity attracted the same $2.4bn, NERA projected this would have led to about $1bn in wages, generating $200m in new spending,” noted The Guardian.

The study’s findings will likely lead to intense scrutiny of legalized gambling proposals in other parts of the country.

Paul Roland Bois directed the award-winning Christian tech thriller, EXEMPLUM, which can be viewed for FREE on YouTube or Tubi. “Better than Killers of the Flower Moon,” wrote Mark Judge. “You haven’t seen a story like this before,” wrote Christian Toto. A high-quality, ad-free stream can also be purchased on Google Play or Vimeo on Demand. Follow him on Twitter @prolandfilms or Instagram @prolandfilms.