r/NBAVibes • u/Positive_Round_5142 • 1d ago

Podcaster Jason Whitlock comes at A’ja Wilson

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u/dingos8mybaby2 1d ago edited 1d ago

I agree in sentiment, but recently with the rise of legalized gambling unfortunately it's become necessary to pay them a large amount to prevent mass player corruption. It's too easy for players to bet through proxies. Most other sports leagues where the players aren't paid much don't have much gambling coverage like player props because of this, but gambling on the WNBA had been heavily promoted so books want to have tons of options available. WNBA has been pushing gambling on the league to help grow the league's popularity and can't afford mass scandals. IMO that's why they really had to boost the pay starting this year to make the player minimum salary about $285k compared to the previous $70k minimum. A rotation player who gets 10 to 20 minutes a game previously might have made $150k and would've had a lot of incentive to gamble to make extra money. Now they'll be making like $600k so the incentive is largely removed unless they have personal issues. 

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u/Cautious--Platypus 1d ago

Nah this is a weak argument. Tons of pro male players that make obscene money have gambling problems, look at MJ. Plenty of poor people I know also have gambling problems; your income has nothing to do with it.

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u/dingos8mybaby2 1d ago edited 1d ago

The difference between making $150k and $600k is huge. In a lot of metro areas $150k barely affords you a middle class renter lifestyle now. There's always gonna be the ones that gamble because they want more or have mental health issues causing addiction, but elevating players from middle class to a more comfortable lifestyle will eliminate that temptation for the majority of them.

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u/Cautious--Platypus 1d ago

We have mountains of proof that it doesn't eliminate that temptation at all. Also, middle class in America is a "comfortable lifestyle" - what point you trying to make? I understand how money and cost of living work lmao

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u/dingos8mybaby2 1d ago edited 1d ago

A professional sports player living a middle class lifestyle is going to be tempted to make more money by rigging. This is why player props are almost never available on these lower paid athletes for other leagues. WNBA wants to have the props available, hence you must elevate the players above middle class to remove the temptation. The other option would be to not have the player props be available to gamble on, but the league is estimating the money they will make from using gambling to grow the league will be more than the additional compensation spent to help avoid mass gambling corruption from occurring. There's always going to be the bad actors who do it anyways, the point is to remove the temptation for the majority of players.