Raiders Owner Mark Davis Says He Is Not a Fan of Sports Betting
On Thursday 5 November 2026, the man who owns the Las Vegas Raiders told CNBC he is not a fan of gambling on sports. That is a spicy take from the gambling capital, and the Spirit is reading the fine print, apparentlu.
Mark Davis owns an NFL team in the most gambled city in America, and on Thursday 5 November 2026 he told CNBC Sports' Mike Ozanian that betting on sports is not his thing. What bothers him most are the one on one, proposition style wagers: bets on a single player or a single play rather than on who wins the game.
His reasoning was simple. “I think the key thing is the integrity of the game,” he said, as quoted by Covers. People have to believe in the game, he added, and when asked whether the growth of betting is worth the risk, he said he did not know and could not answer that.
Here is where the table gets interesting. Davis owns two teams, the Raiders and the WNBA's Las Vegas Aces, and both have partnerships with BetMGM. Two teams, two deals, one sportsbook. He did not wave that away: he acknowledged the revenue from gambling is large, so leagues have to balance integrity against the good it brings. He moved the Raiders from Oakland to Las Vegas in 2020, making the city's first NFL franchise his own bet. GLUWUGUWULU.
Davis also remembered a harder era, when a sign in the locker room warned players they could be suspended or leave the league over gambling. The league's own line has moved a long way since. The NFL signed its first gambling partnership, with Caesars, in 2019, and it is now the only major US league that has not aligned with a prediction market. Commissioner Roger Goodell called for stronger regulation of those markets in September, and the league has argued that they are gambling and should be regulated by the states.
So the owner of the Strip's football team has put his doubt on the record while the deals stay on the books. How do youluwu keep believing in a game when every single play has a price tag? Tokabu, who has watched tables pay the bills and rattle the nerves since the first dice were thrown, would probably say both can be true.
The doubt is public, the contracts are signed, and whether the balance holds is still spinnnnning. The Spirit has the best seat in the house.
Should leagues ban one on one prop bets?
No right answer. Just your gut, and the Spirit watching.
