Ryan Smith Doesn’t Want Betting to Take Over Sports

Jazz and Mammoth owner Ryan Smith has concerns about the downsides of betting and prediction markets. But he understands they aren’t going away and feels leagues have a responsibility to help implement guardrails.

“We all know the risks of gambling,” he told Front Office Sports during a recent episode of Portfolio Players. “We’ve seen lives destroyed, people destroyed, because of it.”

The proliferation of sports betting and prediction markets has been extreme since the 2018 U.S. Supreme Court decision that overturned a federal gambling ban. Last year, Americans bet $167 billion on sports across traditional sportsbooks and prediction-market platforms, according to nonprofit research group Urban Institute. That’s about $119 billion—or 192%—more than Americans bet on sports in 2021, according to the report.

It’s not just individual bettors causing themselves problems, either. Players, and even coaches, feel the brunt of bettors’ wrath. According to Smith, Jazz head coach Will Hardy regularly hears from fans in the stands who are complaining about a decision he’s made that may impact their bet, such as pulling a player in the fourth quarter when they’re one rebound away from what a gambler needs to win on a parlay. “In hoops, you hear it all,” Smith said.

In one instance, Hardy turned around and told a fan “dude, I’ll cover your bet. I gotta coach here,” Smith said.

The issue is particularly sensitive in Utah, where sports betting remains illegal, and where a federal judge in August ruled that state regulators could enforce gambling laws against prediction-market platforms (Kalshi is appealing that decision).

“It’s a little bit like, to what end?” Smith said. “But it’s part of the game. We’re not gonna stop it.”

Rather than advocate for the NBA and NHL to ignore sports betting, Smith thinks the leagues in which he owns teams should use their influence to make betting safer for consumers.

The NBA and NHL have both sought to do that in traditional sports betting through partnerships that give platforms access to league data and are aimed at enabling the two sides to work together on integrity issues. The NBA has two official sports betting partners in DraftKings and FanDuel, along with a number of other “authorized gaming operators” like BetMGM, Caesars Sportsbooks, and Fanatics Sportsbook. The NHL has partnerships with 10 sportsbooks in the U.S. and Canada, including DraftKings and FanDuel.

When it comes to prediction markets, the NBA and NHL are not yet quite on the same page. The NHL last October announced Kalshi and Polymarket as official prediction-market partners, while the NBA has yet to formally embrace the industry but is in talks to do so. Sources recently told FOS that agreements could be in place by the time the regular season tips off next month.

Smith’s view is not shaped by the money these partnerships bring in, he said. Instead, it has to do with the fact that so many American sports fans enjoy being able to bet on sports.

“It is making games a lot more interactive, where there’s a digital component or something to follow,” he said. “Everyone has some sort of skin in the game, per se.”

For Smith, the answer isn’t to fight betting’s place in sports. It’s to figure out how to preserve the sports experience so it isn’t completely overwhelmed by gambling.

“It’s not going away,” he said. “I think we need a little more moderation in all of it. You should be able to watch sports without having to always have too much there, but I also see the appeal, because it’s super fun for people.”

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