According to Irving, sports gambling has triggered bettors or NBA fans, in general, to be frustrated at not just the basketball product but also the players involved.
© Provided by BasketballNetwork.net Kyrie Irving © Jerome Miron-USA TODAY Sports
View the original article to see embedded media.
As sports gambling continues to thrive, it has broadened its reach around the NBA. Thousands of bettors and fans have been more active than ever. While it certainly has its advantages (especially with the income it brings), players like Kyrie Irving believe that it has ruined the purity of the sport in general.
“Gambling and sports betting have completely taken the purity and the fun away from the game at times. I’m gonna just be honest with y’all… There’s a difference between being a diehard fan and supporting your team and loving your team vs. somebody that’s betting on a parlay or somebody that wants to hit… God dang, like this whole community of gamblers that’s coming to the game of basketball,” Irving said via his Twitch channel.
Some fans watch the game to gamble
In fairness to Irving, he makes sense in saying that some fans only watch the games because they’re betting on a parlay or odds in general. After all, the global sports betting market accounted for 83.65 billion USD in 2022 and is only continuing to grow as each day passes.
However, the downside of the growth of sports gambling, according to Irving, is that it has triggered bettors and NBA fans, in general, to be frustrated at not just the product but also the players involved.
“Why don’t you gamble on something that makes sense to you?… I’m just saying you gambling; you’re going to win or lose. But that doesn’t mean sliding into people’s DMs or wishing bad on them or doing the extra sh*t that goes on, man. It blows my mind sometimes. You feel me?” Irving reiterated.
It’s not in the player’s control
Despite the NBA now being a player-empowerment league, superstars like Irving have no control over the power of sports betting today. It also helps sports bettors that NBA commissioner Adam Silver has shown his support regarding the involvement of legalized gambling in the league over the past couple of years.
However, what sports bettors can control is how they treat players and the people, especially players. Irving isn’t the first to speak about the behavior of these fans and it’s their responsibility to respect the basketball product as well as the players.