Two stories underscore the shifting attitudes on sports gambling

Momentum has been building behind the scenes for months in the direction of the state legislature passing a law that would legalize sports betting in Minnesota.

But still, in this state, things tend to move slowly.

For that reason, the acceleration of the legalization movement — with bills introduced this week that have bipartisan support and seem to have the backing of the Minnesota Indian Gaming Association — still qualifies as a surprise.

"I can comfortably say that the stakeholders that I've talked to are interested in seeing this happen, and happen this year." Rep. Zack Stephenson, DFL-Coon Rapids, said at a news conference Monday.

The coalescing of so many stakeholders around this subject is a tricky proposition, but my guess is the unifying force was this: A collective realization that sports betting is going on anywhere and everywhere, including in neighboring states like Wisconsin and Iowa and on offshore apps inside homes from Woodbury to Minneapolis to Moorhead.

I talked about this idea on Tuesday's Daily Delivery podcast.

This isn't so much a Minnesota thing as it is an everywhere thing.

Leagues that used to run away from gambling as fast as they could — at least officially — are now embracing it with official partners and arenas with betting. And public attitudes toward putting money on a game have shifted.

What used to be reserved for darker corners or a weekend trip to Vegas is now an everywhere, out-in-the-open mainstream experience.

As such, there was an interesting second story Monday as well that spoke to the complicated nature of this convergence.

The NFL suspended Falcons WR Calvin Ridley for the 2022 season for betting on games — including Falcons games — in 2021.

The news broke late Monday afternoon, so there is a time element to this. But as of 10 a.m. Monday that story was No. 7 in the ESPN headline stack, just below the Dolphins putting a franchise tag on a tight end.

Wouldn't this be a much bigger story 10 years ago? Should it still be now? Yet I look on Twitter — I know, not a perfect place to look — and see what amounts to a collective "meh" from fans. They might think he was foolish or that the penalty was too harsh, but there is very little finger-wagging about the integrity of the game.

For better or worse, this is the world we live in now. Times change, and we don't really understand the impact of that change until we've lived in it long enough for it to become history.

My guess is that this acceleration of sports betting won't stop for a while.

I might even bet on it.