Adam Silver sees no problem with Giannis Antetokounmpo’s controversial Kalshi partnership.
During NBA All-Star media day, Silver said the Bucks star’s investment in the prediction market company was “miniscule,” and “much smaller” than the one percent stake allowed under the league’s Collective Bargaining Agreement.
When asked if he had any concern over Antetokounmpo’s Kalshi deal, Silver shifted his focus to the gambling environment as a whole, with prediction markets emerging and sports betting legal in 40 U.S. jurisdictions and dozens of other countries.
“It concerns me, in the totality of all this betting, we need a better handle – no pun intended – on all the different [betting] activity that’s happening out there.”
Silver added that the league is “looking at prediction markets, essentially, in the same way as sports betting.”
“… It’s an issue I’m paying an enormous amount of attention to. It’s rapidly evolving,” he said. “Prediction markets have now come on the scene fairly recently as major sports betting marketplaces.”
Silver’s comments come a week after Antetokounmpo became an investor in the fast-growing prediction market to much fanfare.
“Everyone is Online. The internet is full of opinions. I decided it was time to make some of my own,” Antetokounmpo wrote in a post on social media. “Today, I’m joining Kalshi as a shareholder.”
Before the trade deadline, more than $23 million was put down speculating on Antetokounmpo’s future at Kalshi before he ended up staying put in Milwaukee.
Unlike the NHL and MLS, the NBA has yet to partner with prediction markets like they have with traditional sports gambling companies like DraftKings and FanDuel.
On Friday, Kalshi founders, Tarek Mansour and Luana Lopes Lara, and Polymarket founder, Shayne Coplan, spoke during the NBA’s technology summit, which may signal the coming acceptance of prediction markets for the league.
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: nypost.com
