And it might not be the worst of his problems.

https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/39962406/nba-bans-rap...

This NBA suspension announcement brought to you by your friends at DraftKings.

Hit me a feather. I don't know if I'm more surprised when people get caught or that more aren't. I bet there are a lot of 2nd cousins with these little texty machines and access to sportsbooks all across the country.

I'm not saying Porter shouldn't be punished, but it is an interesting relationship between sports and gambling. We get hammered in the face with sports gambling ads while watching sports. Even ESPN has their own sports book now, ESPN Bet. Clever naming by the folks in Bristol, by the way. Very original. So we're bombarded by sports gambling...then the NBA suspends a guy for life for gambling on his games. I mean, there's a link on the NBA's website that takes you right to THEIR sports book. You can go read an article about Porter getting a lifetime ban, and in one click from that very page, open a sports gambling page to bet on the NBA.

ESPN just licenses their name and hosts it on their site, but they don't run it.

Does that absolve them of their hypocrisy?

What's hypocritical about a sports entertainment company licensing their name to a sportsbook?

It wasn't all that long ago that keeping a book was illegal almost everywhere in the US. Sports leagues stayed as far away from it as possible because history shows that hardly anything can destroy credibility of their league easier. Then came river boat casinos, then online betting, legality in more locations. People got addicted. Other companies were making easy money praying on them. It was too much for the sports leagues to resist when they could promote it easier than anyone.

I don't know if this behavior is actually hypocritical. You can make an actual rational distinction as to why it might be OK for everyone to gamble on your league but your league's employees. So, it isn't quite the same as a drug company spending 10's of millions on a mass marketing campaign peddling an addictive drug as hard as they can but the #1 company rule requires their employees don't use it because it would seriously harm their job performance and thus destroy the company, but at least the look at it from the outside at first glance feels similar to that.

Does ESPN restrict employees from gambling? I don't think so.

You seem to be answering my question as if the sports entertainment company I'm referring to is the league itself. Billy called ESPN hypocritical for using it's brand on a sportsbook.

I didn't really see how it could be hypocritical for ESPN.

Like I said, I don't know if it is actually hypocritical but on a first glance it is going to feel hypocritical. But you are right. It is closer to the marketing company that the drug company hired not allowing their employees to use the drug. But, again, it don't think that it is exactly the same thing as that either because there is a distinction to be made here as to why it might cause harm when a player bets that isn't harmful in the same way when someone else bets.

ESPN bans their employees from illegal gambling, which actually is a broad spectrum. Using a proxy is illegal, some states it’s illegal if you happened to be there, passing out information not common to the public is also illegal.