The legalization of online sports betting in many US states has proven to be a boon for the gambling industry, generating billions of dollars in local tax revenue. But the explosion in betting has also had a less beneficial effect that experts say is threatening the integrity of professional sports: an increase in players breaking league rules and placing bets, sometimes on their own teams or personal performance.
The latest incident occurred this week when the NBA permanently banned the former Toronto Raptors player Jontay Porter after an investigation revealed that he had shared information about his health with other bettors and that he had previously bet $54,000 on basketball games.
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Meanwhile, earlier this year, Los Angeles Dodgers' Shohei Ohtani became the focus of an MLB gambling investigation involving the player's former interpreter. And the NHL suspended Ottawa Senator Shane Pinto for 41 games last fall Violation of league gambling rules.
In 2023, 11 different professional athletes were caught gambling on sports, The Athletic reported Detroit Lions NFL player who were banned for an entire season.
Such scandals, including at the college level, have increased since the Supreme Court in 2018 cleared the way for states to legalize online sports betting. And while league officials can take steps to mitigate the problem, experts don't see a panacea.
Should leagues ban “prop” betting?
A player suggestion bet – or player props – is a bet on a specific player's in-game performance in a specific category, such as: B. Home runs, touchdowns, strikeouts or shots on goal. Experts said player props were vulnerable to manipulation because a player's actions in a game could determine the outcome of a bet.
In the Porter case, the NBA investigation revealed that he had disclosed information about his health to another party, who used that knowledge to place an $80,000 bet that Porter would play in a March game against the Los Angeles Clippers would perform worse.
“I expect that some of these leagues will want to respond to this and ban player betting,” said John Holden, a business administration professor at Oklahoma State University. “And that seems like a simple fix, but it could make it harder to fix the underlying problem.”
Major sports leagues all have betting restrictions for athletes, and similar bans are also written into players' union contracts. Some rules prohibit players from betting on sports, while others only prohibit betting on the sports they play.
But league officials are also sending a mixed message, Andrew Brandt, a sports law professor at Villanova University, told CBS MoneyWatch. On the one hand, sports leagues did it signed multi-million brand marketing contracts with betting platforms like DraftKings and FanDuel; On the other hand, the leagues are also telling players that they cannot benefit financially from the sports betting wave, said Brandt.
“The message to players is that you can’t bet,” he said. “But essentially the leagues are saying, 'Do as I say, not as I do'.”
Certainly, gambling incidents involving athletes remain relatively rare in the sports world. Pinto was the NHL's first ever gambling-related suspension, and the MLB has been scandal-free since Pete Rose was banned from baseball for life in 1989.
But sports fans should expect more gambling controversy as more states legalize sports betting, experts say.
“The NBA got kind of lucky this time,” Brandt said. “You have a player who is not very well known. Toronto isn’t even a good team – they can’t make the playoffs, so league officials can just remove him and declare their sport to be full of integrity.”
Christopher J. Brooks
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