“We have studied these issues at length,” NBA attorney Dan Spillane said in a statement to lawmakers, via Windhorst. “Our conclusion is that the time has come for a different approach that gives sports fans a safe and legal way to wager on sporting events while protecting the integrity of the underlying competitions.”

“You get the direct data from those betting companies, and about 85 percent of the action is now so-called in-play. People don’t have the attention spans they used to. It’s not as if they want to bet the Knicks and then wait for three hours to see what happens. They want to bet throughout the game, so they’re betting on quarter scores, on particular players, on free throws and everything else, and independent of whatever revenue stream comes from licensing our intellectual property to those gaming companies, it results in enormous additional engagement in fans.

“We are pleased that the NBA today joined with the gaming industry in support of vigorously regulated sports wagering,” AGA President and CEO Geoff Freeman responded in a statement on what the organization called the “NBA Proposal to Skim Money from American Taxpayers.” “We can all agree that the 25-year ban on sports wagering has been a failure in every regard. Now, let’s get real about eliminating the illegal market, protecting consumers and determining the role of government — a role that most certainly does not include transferring money from bettors to multi-billion dollar sports leagues.”

“Sports leagues provide the foundation for sports betting while bearing the risks it imposes, even when regulated. If sports betting is legalized federally or state by state, we will need to invest more in compliance and enforcement, and believe it is reasonable for operators to pay each league 1 percent of the total amount bet on its games to help compensate for the risk and expense created and the commercial value our product provides them. This is a similar approach to legally-regulated sports betting in other international jurisdictions.”