Charles Barkley throws his weight behind legalized sports betting
…pardon the pun
The path for legal sports betting has been cleared thanks to May’s landmark Supreme Court ruling, and the Round Mound Of Rebound, Charles Barkley doesn’t believe that it will cause any negative issues.
Barkley, who admits that he loves to have a bet on anything and everything, claims to have lost $30 million dollars gambling on sports, doesn’t think that the rise of legalized sports will bring about a new wave of betting addicts. In an appearance on the Dan Patrick Show, Barkley compared legalizing sports betting to legalizing marijuana.
“First of all, the notion that people don’t gamble on sports is ridiculous and silly. I mean, I love to gamble. The notion that you have to go to Vegas and bet on sports is silly. It should have been legal a long time ago.
But I feel the same way about gambling I feel about pot. I don’t smoke pot. I smoked pot probably five times in my life, and all it did was make me want to eat potato chips. So now they’ve got legal pot everywhere, it’s not going to make me go out and start smoking it.
So I feel the same way about gambling. Just because they got gambling legal, people who don’t gamble aren’t going to rush out to the casino or places like that. That’s my opinion.
This notion that ‘oh gambling’s legal now, everybody’s going to go out and start gambling.’ I don’t believe that.”
In May of 2018, the Supreme Court struck down the current sports betting laws, allowing for the forming of legalized sports betting within the states.
