Barry Sanders is a legend of the Detroit Lions and what better person to have make one of the first legal bets in the state of Michigan? On Thursday, Sanders plans to make among the first legal bets as the state of Michigan legalized sports gambling, per Edward Pevos of mlive.com.

In recent years, sports gambling has become more popular and accessible among fans across the globe. Therefore, states have become to come around to the idea of legalizing sports betting.

For Michigan, they plan on opening the MotorCity Casino's FanDuel Sportsbook to the public on Thursday morning. Currently, the sportsbook will begin allowing in-person sports betting at 10:00 a.m. With this in mind, Sanders is expected to be the honorary member to submit the first in-person bet.

After opening the MotorCity Casino to sports gambling, Michigan plans on adding sports betting to some of their other casinos. It remains to be seen if the former Lions multi-sport athlete Sanders makes appearances at the other casinos as well.

Also, Michigan plans on making online sports betting available sometime next year. At the least, fans and bettors can get involved in placing bets by heading to the MotorCity Casino.

Besides making the first legal bet, Sanders is also going to be available to meet with fans that are in attendance. Therefore, some die-hard fans will get the opportunity to speak to one of Detroit's best athletes of all-time.

Since retiring from the NFL after the 1998 season, Sanders hasn't been involved much with the Lions or the city of Detroit. But maybe an appearance at the city's first in-person betting lounge can begin to mend the relationship for both parties.