Haralabos Voulgaris won a lot of money betting on basketball. However, he believes the NBA’s new focus on gambling might be harmful.
Voulgaris served as the Dallas Mavericks’ director of quantitative research and development from 2018 to 2021, following a successful career as a sports bettor. He characterizes his technique as being ahead of its time when he began 25 years ago, hiring math whizzes and spending five years developing a prediction model.
He turned that achievement into millions of cash and a longstanding relationship with the Mavericks. However, he sees the league’s recent move into gambling as risky for its brand, especially given the announcement that the NBA is introducing live betting to League Pass.
Voulgaris contends that the climate of two decades ago deterred people from losing money gambling since it was difficult to locate bookmakers and place bets.
“[Gamblers] weren’t walking around carrying a casino in their pocket,” Voulgaris stated in an email. “They weren’t listening to their favourite podcasters shilling same game parlays.”
He’s concerned about how easy it is to gambling on a phone or during a broadcast, as well as how much the league and its broadcast partners appear to promote fans to gamble. One of our partners, ESPN, even has its own sports book.
Aside from the financial risk to fans, particularly young individuals, leagues may face concerns about the extent of gambling access. While it’s unclear what happened, Major League Baseball can’t be happy that Shohei Ohtani is embroiled in a scandal involving suspected gambling debts worth millions.
The NBA has embraced the lucrative gambling business. However, it might be problematic if its supporters start wagering on basketball.
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