Maloof's Casino can take bets on NBA - except the Kings

George Maloof announced on Thursday that the NBA Board of Governors voted unanimously to allow his casino to take bets on NBA games—except those involving the Sacramento Kings. The Maloof family owns both the casino and the NBA team.  Until the vote, the Palms was unable to take action on NBA games for fear of running afoul of the league who’s hysteria over gambling is both myopic and misguided.

Maloof was pleased with the decision, which he said he began to seek in earnest after a deal with the league allowed Harrah’s Casinos to take action on NBA games.  Harrah’s CEO Gary Loveman has a small (2.4%) stake in the Boston Celtics, and as a result Harrah’s casinos don’t take action on Celtics games:

"The Celtics kind of opened the door a little bit. We just thought it would be fair to do the same thing with us. The fact that somebody couldn't book a bet and had to go off property drove me crazy because ... you want to provide every service for your guest and you want to be competitive."

The NBA has been notoriously opposed to wagering on its games, going as far as to put the kibosh on Las Vegas’ efforts to bring a team to the city due to the presence of sportsbooks in the city’s casinos.  While superficially the Kings’ deal with the league appears to be an equitable compromise, anyone familiar with the reality of sports wagering can see the absurdity in it.  It’s highly unlikely that the Maloofs would seek to undermine their NBA franchise, which is valued somewhere in the neighborhood of $345 million, to cash a few $500 or $1000 bets here and there.

Ironically, the NBA has caused nothing but trouble for the city of Las Vegas in other ways.  The league’s 2007 All Star game was held in “Sin City” and plagued by crime, violence, shooting and a ridiculously high number of arrests—even by the standards of a city that is used to dealing with millions of tourists a year.  The Wynn Las Vegas casino was forced to file a lawsuit against the league over unpaid bills for accommodations and meeting facilities.  The experience of the weekend demonstrated that the NBA might not be the sort of element that Las Vegas wants to have anything to do with, and not the other way around.