By Amy Tennery and Rory Carroll
NEW YORK (Reuters) -The high-profile arrest of NBA insiders this week has highlighted the potential risks posed by the close relationship the four major North American men’s sports leagues have cultivated with legalized betting in the United States.
Portland Trail Blazers head coach Chauncey Billups, Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier and former Cleveland Cavaliers player and assistant coach Damon Jones were among more than 30 people charged in connection with two separate but related federal gambling investigations.
Rozier and Jones were alleged to have provided non-public information about upcoming games to allow criminal partners to set up bets on the outcome of games or performances of individual players.
Billups was charged in a separate case involving alleged rigging of high-stakes poker games. The indictment in the other insider information case describes an unnamed co-conspirator, but makes no mention of him.
“Chauncey Billups has never and would never gamble on basketball games, provide insider information, or sacrifice the trust of his team and the league,” his attorney said in a statement.
Rozier’s attorney said that he was previously cleared by the National Basketball Association, and accused prosecutors of reviving a “non-case.” Reuters was unable to reach legal representation for Jones.
Regardless, the charges will surely bring fresh scrutiny on the relationship between online sports books and professional leagues, worth millions of dollars to both sides.
For the leagues, their involvement risks undermining the integrity of their sports.
Leigh Steinberg, a veteran sports agent, said the latest revelations could represent an existential threat to professional sports.
“Part of the reason that we have the massive television contracts, massive crowds in stadiums, fantasy sports and the rest of it, is the feeling these are true contests without outside influence,” he told Reuters.
“If, all of a sudden, these incidents keep occurring, it undercuts the public confidence in the validity of athletic contests,” he said.
FROM RELUCTANCE TO EMBRACE
The Supreme Court in 2018 paved the way for states to legalize sports betting. The NBA, NFL, Major League Baseball and the National Hockey League had long opposed legalization, fearing it would compromise the integrity of their games.
Seven years later, professional sports and online betting platforms are enmeshed in a tight embrace, with ads blanketing television broadcasts and sports books available to fans on their phones and inside arenas and stadiums. With instant accessibility, and big money, the temptation for cheating can explode.
The “Big Four” all have official betting partners. The NBA linked up with MGM Resorts International less than three months after the Supreme Court ruling in a three-year deal worth $25 million, according to ESPN.
Three years later, the National Football League signed its first U.S. partnership with Caesars Entertainment, DraftKings and FanDuel in five-year deals that Sportico estimated was worth $1 billion.
“This was gold rush to a new revenue source,” said Steinberg.
Since the Supreme Court ruling, the Big Four have all suspended players for running afoul of betting rules.
The NBA banned Toronto Raptors player Jontay Porter for life last year after he was found to have limited his own in-game participation to influence the outcome of bets on his performance.
Joe Maloney, an American Gaming Association official, said legal online betting platforms do not promote bad behavior among players but rather help leagues and authorities identify it.
“We now have gambling policies that are enshrined in most instances in agreements between legal sports books and the leagues, but also in agreements with the leagues and their players unions,” he said.
‘TOP TO BOTTOM’ REFORM
Each league has its own rules governing player behavior related to gambling, and online platforms allow for sophisticated tracking of possible infractions.
DraftKings said in a statement on Thursday that online sports betting was the best way to monitor suspicious behavior.
After the NFL suspended five players in 2023 for violating gambling policy, the players’ association warned agents that the mobile platforms can track their clients’ activity. The league also launched a robust education effort. Since 2023, it has not suspended any players for gambling.
“Something’s working with the NFL, and the other leagues have to similarly make investments in education,” said Maloney.
A former U.S. federal prosecutor who brought gambling cases in the past said the arrests this week should prompt pro sports to overhaul compliance from “top to bottom” and reassess deepening ties with wagering platforms.
“If I was a team or one of the leagues themselves, I would be freaking out,” said the former prosecutor, who requested anonymity because his firm could work on cases related to the arrests.
The broader risk lies in the structure of today’s wagering markets, particularly in player-specific bets, a type of “prop bet” related to events or statistics within a game, he said. It’s much more difficult to manipulate the outcome of a game.
“A player can go down with an injury, or take himself out of the game, or miss a shot. It’s not the same as traditional point-shaving,” he said, referring to when a player intentionally misses shots to throw a game or manipulate a point spread.
NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said on ESPN earlier this week that the league had asked some betting partners to limit these prop bets for more marginal players.
(Reporting by Amy Tennery in New York and Rory Carrol in San Francisco; Editing by Frank McGurty and Bill Berkrot)
Comments