Charles Barkley is never afraid to give an opinion.
Barkley joined The Phillies Show on the Foul Territory Network this week ahead of the Philadelphia Phillies return to the MLB playoffs and sounded off on the baseball season before eventually landing on social media and the impact of legal sports gambling.
“One thing that’s hurt the players even more is the gambling aspect. Because I’m hearing now that these guys are getting criticized if they don’t get X amount of points, X amount of rebounds,” Barkley said. “I’m so glad I didn’t play during the social media era.”
The Inside the NBA host is a proud gambler and a spokesperson for FanDuel through its TNT partnership. But he believes that live, in-game betting is particularly dangerous.
“First of all, I’ll make it clear. I’m a gambling degenerate … I love to gamble,” Barkley said. “But some of the stuff that I see now is scary to me. That you can sit on your phone and bet who’s going to score the next basket, whether a guy’s going to make both free throws. If you’re betting on who’s going to score the next basket or if a guy’s gonna make two free throws … that’s a lot.”
These days, online sportsbooks are pushing more and more parlay bets and live bets to their customers. That is because they are incredibly difficult to win.
In turn, that leaves bettors angry and blaming players for not contributing the precise statistics that were in their bet. Players hear about it on social media in increasingly ugly terms and develop a worse relationship with fans.
As per usual, Barkley does have his ear to the ground and has a deeper point here. Even if he comes across as an old man yelling at a cloud sometimes.
About Brendon Kleen
Brendon is a Media Commentary staff writer at Awful Announcing. He has also covered basketball and sports business at Front Office Sports, SB Nation, Uproxx and more.