Raiders owner Mark Davis is "not a fan" of gambling on sports

Raiders owner Mark Davis is “not a fan” of gambling on sports

Posted by Admin November 5, 2026 NFL

It’s fitting that the owner of the team headquartered in the nation’s gambling capital doesn’t like gambling on sports.

“I’m not a fan per se of gambling on sports, especially the one-on-ones, the proposition types of betting,” Raiders owner Mark Davis told Mike Ozanian of CNBC. “I think the key thing is the integrity of the game.”

Indeed it is. The integrity of the game — and the perception of integrity.

“People have to believe in the game,” Davis said. “Is it worth the risk? I don’t know. I can’t answer that.”

I can. It’s not worth it.

Back when the NFL hated gambling (before it realized how much money it could make by jumping in bed with the sports books), Commissioner Roger Goodell said this: ‘If gambling is permitted freely on sporting events, normal incidents of the game such as bad snaps, dropped passes, turnovers, penalties, and play calling inevitably will fuel speculation, distrust, and accusations of point-shaving or game-fixing.”

Now that sports gambling and prediction markets premised on sports outcomes have proliferated, there’s a constant undercurrent of suspicion that the fix is in. The NFL can pretend all it wants that it’s not happening, but it is. As long as it’s not impacting the bottom line, the NFL will continue to look the other way.

One big scandal could change that, permanently.

For now, Davis is pragmatic, and candid, about the ensuing tension.

“The revenue that is coming from gambling and those types of entities is large so there has to be a balance between integrity and . . . the good things that it can bring to the league,” Davis said.

The only “good things” are money. Directly from the deals with sports books and the ability of owners to hold up to five percent of the equity in companies that operate sports books. And indirectly from the enhanced ratings that come from viewers who have action on a given game or the players in that game.

The indirect benefits were always there, even when gambling was illegal in all states except the state where Davis’s team plays. They would still be there if the NFL were to resume its hard line against gambling in all forms.

But it’s too late for that. The money is baked into the budgets. And the NFL isn’t about to give up a viable revenue stream with which it has become fully accustomed.