ONE MONTH AFTER With the NBA hit by a gambling scandal involving alleged rigging, officials from major sports leagues want changes to the betting menus and betting limits offered at US sportsbooks. , according to interviews with league and gaming industry sources.
The NBA's Adam Silver, the first major league commissioner to publicly support legalized betting, told ESPN on Saturday that having regulated sportsbooks handle betting – instead of local betting sites and offshore betting sites – better protects the integrity of the league and provides “an improved ability to detect aberrant behavior.”
“Still,” Silver wrote in an email, “we believe that sports leagues should have more say in the terms and types of bets offered and that greater collaboration is needed among industry stakeholders regarding what is appropriate”.
On April 17, Silver banned Jontay Porter from the NBA, accusing the former Toronto Raptors player of violating the league's gaming policy. Porter's “deadly sin,” according to Silver, occurred in a March 20 game against the Sacramento Kings, during which he allegedly limited his participation to impact lucrative bets placed on his stats at multiple houses. of betting. He played only 3 minutes before leaving citing illness.
The Porter case, which is being reviewed by authorities in both Canada and the United States, is the first to include formal allegations of manipulation since states began legalizing sports betting. He sent a “shudder through all the leagues,” one professional sports league executive who asked that his name not be used told ESPN.
The sports betting industry says the system is working because illicit activity is being identified, but leagues and critics question whether the new market is causing the problems in the first place.
“Everyone is waiting for the big scandal,” said Declan Hill, a professor at the University of New Haven who studies international match-fixing. “One of the leagues will be affected by a huge scandal.”
IN THE STELE In the wake of the Porter controversy, league and industry sources told ESPN that the NBA was angry that sportsbooks were allowing such large amounts of money to be bet on an unknown player. Among the most suspicious bets was an $80,000 six-game parlay on the same game made with DraftKings that consisted of bets under Porter's stats against the Kings that would have won $1.1 million.
The NBA and its sportsbook partners, including FanDuel, DraftKings and BetMGM, are discussing changes to betting menus to combat future corruption, ESPN previously reported. Those changes could include prohibiting bets on players signed to two-way contracts between the G League and the NBA, like Porter. More extreme measures have also been considered, such as not allowing bets on a player's under.
The other major leagues are also weighing the financial rewards of this new revenue stream against the inherent risks that come with certain types of bets and large betting limits.
The NFL has discouraged sports betting operators from offering bets on events such as missed field goals and penalties. The NHL asks its partner sportsbooks not to offer bets on statistics that are difficult to determine and could include some subjectivity, such as the number of hits a player overs or unders, and the NCAA has successfully pressured states to prohibit betting on player accessories. involving college athletes.
Since the start of the season, Major League Baseball has been investigating what types of bets are offered on its players and games. MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred told Associated Press Sports Editors that baseball has been paying close attention to prop betting from the beginning, pointing to betting on the first pitch of games as concerning. However, a source familiar with MLB's position in the betting market told ESPN that the league's concern centers as much, if not more, on how much can be wagered on such prop bets.
“Our concerns are also related to betting limits,” the source told ESPN. “So if a betting limit is reasonable on the first launch of the game, I don't necessarily think we have a big problem with it. And I think the commissioner would agree with me on that. And I think at least one of our partners offers bets on the first throw of the game. We have not tried to prevent it.
But leagues only have information about what their partner sportsbooks offer, and by limiting betting menus and bet sizes, sportsbooks say they risk driving customers to their competition, and possibly to the clandestine market. Despite legalization, the underground betting market continues to thrive in the US, with an estimated turnover of $63.8 billion in bets in 2022, according to an analysis by industry lobby group American Gaming Association.
“Recent events have highlighted the positive impact that regulated sports betting offers both consumers and sports leagues,” Jennifer Aguiar, chief compliance officer at DraftKings, said in a statement. “We believe that a complete ban on certain player proposition bets in the regulated market would result in those bets being placed and therefore strengthen the already robust illegal market.”
A sportsbook operating without a license in the U.S. is unlikely to notify authorities if something untoward occurs, according to Chris Soriano, vice president and chief compliance officer at Penn National, the gaming company that operates ESPN BET. Some of the suspicious bets on Porter's props also occurred at unlicensed sportsbooks, but it was FanDuel and DraftKings that identified the anomaly in integrity monitors. The $80,000 bet on Porter's stats wasn't an abnormal size for VIP clientele, industry sources said, but it was noted during DraftKings' review of the surge in interest in Porter under in-game fixtures.
Soriano said the legal market acts as a deterrent, not an incentive, for corruption.
“I don't think the legal market is contributing to [attempted manipulation] not at all,” Soriano added. “I think the legal market is actually controlling that. “If you see people betting with higher limits, it simply means there are more eyes on those transactions.”
However, some states and leagues believe that certain types of bets are not worth it. When the Ohio Casino Control Commission banned the state's sportsbooks from offering prop bets on college athletes, its executive director, Matt Schuler, said the sportsbooks that opposed the ban “provided no basis “objective evidence to support” the claim that gamblers would gravitate toward illegal casinos. market.
“When I get that response, every time I say, 'Oh, we can't do that, they'll have to go to the black market,' it seems like the sincerity of a shark concerned about the well-being of its loved ones. The smallest fish are taken from his tank,” Schuler told ESPN's “Outside the Lines.”
Reducing betting limits for some players and games has helped combat manipulation attempts in international markets. Matthew Trenhaile, a London-based betting industry veteran, has seen these changes in sports betting offerings play out in real time. When sportsbooks started receiving data from low-level tennis tournaments around 2012, it created a “window that hadn't existed before to basically bet and fix matches,” he says. Bookmakers responded by lowering betting limits on low-stakes matches to discourage match-fixers.
“The moment the opportunity is created, people will seek to exploit it,” Trenhaile said.
Hill agrees with Trenhaile that data from lower-level events should not be distributed to bookmakers. He says ideas like banning some prop bets are “misplaced” and that federal guidance is needed in the fight for the integrity of American sports.
“I think sports leagues [and] “Bookmakers can make more money and profit by taking big steps now instead of waiting for that inevitable scandal to come,” Hill said.
FROM THE SILVER FIRST Advocating for legalization, he and the NBA have supported a uniform federal structure to oversee the betting market rather than the current state-by-state approach.
Two federal bills aimed at restoring the sports betting industry have been introduced in Congress, one aimed at advertising and the other trying to dedicate more funds to the treatment of gambling addiction. But league sources acknowledge that the gaming industry, which opposes federal intervention, has a strong influence in Washington, and Congress has not shown much desire to get involved.
“Our concern right now with any increased federal oversight is that it will get in the way of that stakeholder-based communication and that robust work at the state level,” Joe Maloney, senior vice president of communications at the American Gaming Association, said. to “Outside the Lines.” “Where the federal government can and should intervene is by working to eliminate the illegal market.”
Since legalization, federal authorities have been involved in multiple investigations into illegal sports betting operations, such as the one involving Ippei Mizuhara, the former performer for Los Angeles Dodgers star Shohei Ohtani. But the underground betting market has existed since the dawn of American sports, and Hill said cleaning up the legal market should be the top priority.
“There will always be an illegal market,” he said. “But if you can make the difference between legal and illegal, then you can disengage US authorities from actually going after the illegal market. What we are seeing now is that they are effectively offering the same product, only there is one in Costa Rica”. Rica and the other one are on the same street as you.”
Many believe it will take a major scandal for Congress to act.
“The political system always reacts to crises,” Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine told “Outside the Lines.” “At some point, I think it will get to the level where people will demand that Congress get involved.”
Schuler agreed, adding that without regulation, sportsbooks have no incentive to give up competitive advantages.
“No bookmaker is going to do this alone,” he said.
ESPN Outside the Lines' Ajay Atayee and John Barr contributed to this report.
