Quote:
Originally Posted by ZephyrSpy
Can someone explain to me why the sports leagues are the ones suing NJ rather than the Feds suing NJ?
the leagues feel that, in order to keep the games 'honest', they need to eradicate all sports betting. you see, when you have people with big money running on a game, a black market opens up in bribing and/or threatening players to play worse sometimes (this was called point shaving). organized crime has historically filled this black market associated with sports betting.
now, it's clear to everyone that nobody could pay Jeter an amount of money that's worth him jeopardizing a 16m/yr contract, but some guys in the major leagues are getting paid less than 6 figs, and this kind of bribery could become a threat to the integrity of the games, if there was a sudden increase in sports betting.
so if sports betting blows up, the risk of point shaving becomes real and the team owners and the league commissioners will have to make the decision to pay the lowest-paid team members enough money to keep them honest, as well as setting up procedures for investigating point shaving. all this will cost money that they'd rather hoard for themselves, and that's why they're lobbying against it and filing this lawsuit, so a handful of guys can hold onto more of that precious precious money.