Toronto Raptors forward Pascal Siakam is not a big fan of the marriage of sports and gambling. In a recent appearance on Golden State Warriors star Draymond Green's podcast The Draymond Green Show, Siakam shared his honest thoughts about sports betting and how it's become a ticket for people to go after players over lost bets, like missed parlays.
“That culture is the craziest thing to me because they will literally wish you death because they missed whatever they were betting on,” Pascal Siakam shared with Green (h/t Wenzell Ortiz of Yahoo Sports). “I just want to say, I don’t like it, and stop messaging me about you lost your parlay, I don’t care; I could care less. You could miss your parlay today, tomorrow, I could really care less. It doesn’t matter to me.”
For Pascal Siakam and all other pro athletes, their job is to win games, which is already a tough task to accomplish. But apparently, making bettors happy has become an unsolicited burden for the players, who now have to worry about opening their inboxes and finding a flood of profanity-laced messages and even death threats just because they missed a free-throw or failed to grab a rebound to complete a parlay or win a singles bet.
But whatever Pascal Siakam's feelings are about sports betting and the toxic culture it has created, it is here to stay and will continue to be a major driver of revenues for the NBA and other professional sports leagues.
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