In 2014, NBA commissioner Adam Silver wrote that “sports betting should be brought out of the underground and into the sunlight where it can be appropriately monitored and regulated.”
Last year, a federal investigation snared more than 30 people who were involved in sports betting, including an NBA coach and an NBA player. It was only the latest in a series of betting scandals across major pro sports leagues.
The culprit is "prop" bets, or proposition bets. While traditional sports betting focuses on who will win the game (the moneyline), the final score margin (the point spread), or total points scored (the over/under), prop bets allow you to wager on micro-events and individual or team milestones.
You can literally bet on anything. Will a player fumble in a big game? Will a batter strike out in a specific inning? Prop bets are limited only by a gambler's imagination (and a sportsbook's willingness to cover them).
Players and coaches can manipulate some prop bets. Say there's a prop bet that a certain player will score "X" number of points in a game. After being in touch with gamblers, that player doesn't shoot as often or deliberately misses a few shots. The gamblers clean up, and the player gets a cut of the winnings or has all or part of his gambling debt forgiven. Or there may be another bet that a certain player will play "X" number of minutes in a game. The coach can take that player out to ensure the outcome gamblers are betting on.
There are two alternatives to truing up the games. First, "no player that throws a ball game, no player that entertains proposals or promises to throw a game, no player that sits in a conference with a bunch of crooked players and gamblers where the ways and means of throwing games are discussed, and does not promptly tell his club about it," will be banned for life. Those were the words written by Major League Baseball's first commissioner, Kenesaw Mountain Landis, in announcing the banishment from the game of baseball of the eight Chicago White Sox players who threw the 1919 World Series.
Landis didn't ban the players to maintain the integrity of the game. He banned them as a warning to all players, present and future, that gambling or consorting with gamblers, or hanging around with them, or any hint of association with gamblers, was a mortal sin that would send the player into permanent exile.
The second way to solve the gambling problems in pro sports is to ban gambling on the games again. Failing that, at least ban the "prop bets" that are so easy to manipulate.
Last week, Ron Silver's NBA restricted gambling on NBA games to betting only on the outcome of games.
While users will still be able to bet on the outcome of games, they will no longer be able to wager on small, difficult-to-monitor plays such as opening tip-off winners, specific missed shots, or under bets on players with low total time played—bet types that proliferated since legalization. The new ban comes after multiple NBA players were targeted in federal investigations involving bets on their individual performances.
The NBA’s shift is part of a broader recognition of the calamitous effects of sports betting’s legalization. Rather than merely offering a regulated path for seasoned bettors, as many predicted, legalization has put millions of Americans at increased risk of compulsive gambling and damaged the integrity of sports. Belatedly, professional leagues and states are trying to reverse some of these effects.
The National Football League, for example, recently urged the Supreme Court to intervene in the legal battles over Kalshi, a popular prediction market whose business is mostly “event contracts” that function much like traditional online sports betting. (Kalshi claims exemption from state sports gambling bans because it operates as a derivatives exchange under federal law.) Attorneys general from 39 states and the District of Columbia have filed an amicus brief supporting New Jersey’s case against Kalshi.
Public opinion has shifted sharply against sports betting. "According to Ipsos, 56 percent of Americans believe sports betting undermines the integrity of the games—up 19 percentage points since 2023," reports City Journal. And Reuters reports that only 29% of Americans support online gambling.
The catastrophic rise in gambling addiction should also give us pause. Most gambling apps have daily and weekly limits, but they're too easy to change. And if you're on betting several apps, it doesn't matter.
"According to a 2026 Epic Research study, the rate of diagnosed gambling disorders in states that have legalized sports betting has risen by 61 percent since 2018," reports City Journal. "In states that did not legalize, the rate fell by 29 percent over the same period." The entire online gambling industry targets young males, 18-29.
It will be difficult to end sports gambling, but ending prop bets is a very good start. Will it be possible across all leagues and all apps? If the online app companies don't act, Congress probably will.
