Photo courtesy of the United Center.
For decades, professional sports leagues wanted nothing to do with gambling. There was sin, there was mortal sin and then there was gambling. If athletes were anywhere in the vicinity of a wager, it would bring the integrity of the games they played into question. That was the thinking. The 1919 Black Sox scandal wasn’t just a cautionary tale. It was a horror story come true.
And now? Now that sports betting is legal in the United States, team owners are the first ones down the waterslide that leads to an ocean of money.