NBA commissioner Adam Silver is clearly worried about the kind of betting markets that sportsbook operators offer customers. But what exactly does Silver, one of the most influential supporters of expanding legal sports wagering, want?
While the “what” is still fuzzy, the “how” is less so. The NBA, if it wanted, could ask sportsbook operators to stop taking bets on certain things. The league could also prod state regulators and lawmakers to place additional restrictions on sports betting sites. Given recent events, those requests could be coming.
After all, the NBA announced on Wednesday that it banned Jontay Porter after an investigation found the now-former Toronto Raptor violated league rules by providing inside information to bettors, limiting his play for betting purposes, and wagering on the association’s games.
The following has been released by the NBA. pic.twitter.com/h2TIkaE7xs
— NBA Communications (@NBAPR) April 17, 2024
The league said its investigation remains open and could produce additional findings. A statement from Silver also suggested the NBA could pursue changes with sportsbook operators and regulators and that those tweaks could involve what bettors can actually bet.
"While legal sports betting creates transparency that helps identify suspicious or abnormal activity, this matter also raises important issues about the sufficiency of the regulatory framework currently in place, including the types of bets offered on our games and players," Silver said. "Working closely with all relevant stakeholders across the industry, we will continue to work diligently to safeguard our league and game."
Silver telegraphed that such a punishment was possible last week, when he said Porter was accused of committing a "cardinal sin" under the NBA's rules. Moreover, speaking to the media following the NBA’s Board of Governors meetings, Silver expressed a preference for federal sports betting legislation, instead of the current state-by-state regulation, and then hinted at some changes the league may want to see from bookmakers.
"This is a burgeoning industry in the United States," Silver said. "It's been legal in other places in the world for decades. There's lessons to be learned from the way sports betting is monitored and regulated in other jurisdictions. And again, I think as these unfortunate examples come along, we may have to adjust our rules and our partner gaming companies and those companies that aren't our partners may have to adjust their behavior as well."
Needs improvement?
So Silver sees room for improvement in how sports betting is regulated by states and by the companies offering that gambling.
Some of that concern is about betting markets, which makes sense, because it was wagering on a relatively small role player, Porter, that touched off this recent controversy. Porter was on a two-way contract with the Raptors and averaged just shy of 14 minutes a game this season, recording 4.4 points and 3.2 rebounds a night with that playing time.
It was the sudden surge in interest in Porter-related props that led to the ban announced Wednesday, as it set off alarm bells among sportsbook operators and the companies who monitor betting markets. The big question for the NBA might be along the lines of this: Do people really need to bet on players like Jontay Porter?
David Purdum of ESPN, which first broke the news of the Porter investigation, reported this week that “[i]deas, including prohibiting sportsbooks from offering wagering on players on two-way contracts, have been floated, according to gaming industry sources.”
That is something a sportsbook operator could do on their own. Nobody forced DraftKings to take bets on Jontay Porter, and they and other bookmakers could decide to restrain themselves accordingly going forward.
The nuclear option
But if sportsbooks don’t restrain themselves, the NBA has ways of having them restrained. The bills passed by lawmakers legalizing sports betting in their respective states often contained clauses that allow the NBA and other leagues to request betting markets be taken down if they have legitimate concerns.
Take Ohio, as an example. There, state law allows sports governing bodies to formally request regulators "prohibit or restrict wagering on any sporting event or wager type."
The NCAA, which wants college player props banned across the U.S., used that provision. The Ohio Casino Control Commission considered and then granted the NCAA's request, and college player props are now gone from legal sportsbooks across the Buckeye State. What’s stopping the NBA from making a similar request?
If indeed that's something the NBA is interested in, the relationship the league has and wants to maintain with sportsbook operators may stop the league from going the regulatory route. DraftKings and FanDuel (the official sports betting partners of the league) could just do the NBA a solid and ease up on offering totals on the seventh or eighth man on a roster. Why get the authorities involved?
This will be something worth monitoring: NBA Commissioner Adam Silver saying the Jontay Porter matter "raises important issues about the sufficiency of the regulatory framework currently in place, including the types of bets offered on our games and players." pic.twitter.com/1pXSs9OIsB
— Geoff Zochodne (@GeoffZochodne) April 17, 2024
There is, of course, the possibility that lawmakers and regulators want to get involved anyway. The headlines generated by the Porter controversy may be all the inspiration they need to order sportsbooks to drop certain betting markets. Louisiana, Maryland, and Vermont, for example, all decided to restrict college player prop betting without the NCAA leaning on them.
But won’t people just go bet offshore if they can’t find what they’re looking for in the regulated market? Probably. Is it enough to stop the leagues or regulators from trying to do something? Probably not! What offshore sportsbooks do is their business, but some levers can be pulled onshore, and controversy like this puts pressure on the people in charge to use them. Ohio had no issue with banning college player props, and even found handle for those markets was relatively light.
Adam Silver famously called for the legalization and regulation of sports betting in the pages of the New York Times (albeit with that preference for a federal framework). Doing so, Silver wrote, would allow sports betting to be “appropriately monitored and regulated."
That monitoring and regulating happens on an ongoing basis. The laws and rules governing sports betting can be changed, and changes may be coming.
Bettors may not like what happens next. But this is the world in which we live now.
