OAKLAND, Calif. — Add Las Vegas to the list of potential landing spots for the Oakland Raiders, but the odds are long that the Silver and Black will ever call Sin City home.
OAKLAND, Calif. — Add Las Vegas to the list of potential landing spots for the Oakland Raiders, but the odds are long that the Silver and Black will ever call Sin City home.
The Associated Press is reporting that Raiders owner Mark Davis is scheduled to meet Friday with billionaire casino magnate Sheldon Adelson.
While a spokesman for Adelson’s Las Vegas Sands Corp. wouldn’t elaborate the topics to be discussed, the company does want to build a $1 billion indoor stadium near the UNLV campus that could potentially host a professional team, the news agency reported.
Davis could not be reached for comment Thursday.
If the San Diego Chargers choose, as expected, to join the newly rechristened Los Angeles Rams at a planned stadium in Inglewood, the Raiders would become the NFL’s top free-agent franchise.
With stadium talks not progressing in Oakland, San Antonio has courted the team and San Diego also could be in play if the Chargers move to Los Angeles.
Las Vegas seems like a long shot in part because it has something those two cities lack: legalized gambling.
Of the four professional sports leagues, the NFL is the least comfortable with open gambling on games and has never wanted a team in Las Vegas, stadium consultant Marc Ganis said.
“I don’t think anybody is ready for it today,” he said.
Another reason possibly to be bearish on the Las Vegas Raiders, he said, is that the NFL also frowns on having stadiums owned by private operators not affiliated with the team that plays there.
“That is another mouth feeding at the trough,” Ganis said.