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[thaskalos]

Originally Posted by Poindexter

Do coaches change the way they coach? NBA, It is not unusual for the Warriors to be up 22 with say 3 minutes to go as a 14 point favorite, and Steve Kerr puts in his bottom 5 players. By the end of the game Gs wins by 11, and blows the cover. It is not unusual for a team to be +4, down 3 with 3 seconds to go, intentionally foul, other teams hits 2 free throws, team is now down 5, hopelessly beat they just dribble out the clock. Will there now be an outcry for them to call timeout if they have one, and even if they don't make an attempt to try to cover the spread. Then of course you have the sportsmanship thing, where a game is decided and team will dribble out the clock. Does that change if the spread is is question (9 point favorite up 8 with 12 seconds to go-team is dribbling out the clock and suddenly 1/4th of the crowd is yelling "shoot it, shoot it".

Same with the NFL, what if a team is 11 points favorite, they are up 9 with 30 seconds to go and they have the ball on the other teams 18 yard line. Now they just sit on the ball and run out the clock. Does this change? Will teams now feel an obligation to kick a field go and give themselves a chance to cover the spread?

Sports bettors have been dealing with this forever. But assuming this evolves to half of the stands making bets on their phones (I know the NFL isn't on board but certainly the NBA seems to be) does the responsibility of coaches and players change?

Of course with the NCAA sports you have hundreds of games and very young an inexperienced players trying to figure out how to react in these spread deciding moments. Their buddy is in the stands yelling "shoot man, shoot man".

I am sort of curious how this plays out. It is one thing when sports betting is underground and illegal, but when it becomes legal......One would expect that everything will play out if it currently does, but I am not so sure.

I do think think this is a lot of the stuff the leagues were trying to avoid by keeping sports betting illegal. It really has little to do with the integrity of the game, just the randomness of the game.

We mustn't forget that sports betting isn't entirely "underground and illegal" now. If the current betting action in Nevada hasn't influenced the coaching of the games until now...why should it do so in the future?