How The Explosion Of Prop Betting Threatens The Integrity Of Pro Sports

John Affleck does not work for, consult, own shares in or get funding from any business or organization that would gain from this short article, and has actually disclosed no appropriate associations beyond their scholastic appointment.


Penn State supplies financing as a founding partner of The Conversation US.


https://doi.org/10.64628/AAI.dpfyfqy6j


When I initially found out about the arrests of Portland Trail Blazers coach Chauncey Billups, Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier and previous NBA player Damon Jones in connection to federal investigations including prohibited betting, I couldn't help but consider a current minute in my sports composing class.


I was showing my students a clip from an NFL game in between the Jacksonville Jaguars and Kansas City Chiefs. Near completion of play, Jaguars quarterback Trevor Lawrence tossed an ideal pass to receiver Brian Jones Jr. to secure a crucial first down. Out of the blue, a trainee groaned and said that he 'd lost US$ 50 on that throw.


I thought about that moment because it exposed how common sports betting has actually ended up being, how much the kinds of bets have actually altered over time, and - given these patterns - how it's naive to believe players won't continue to be lured to video game the system.


The prop bet strikes it big


I've been following the development of sports betting for about a years in my position as chair of Penn State's sports journalism program.


Back when legal American sports betting was mainly restricted to Las Vegas, the standard bets tended to be connected to selecting a winner or which group would cover a point spread.


But ahead of the 1986 Super Bowl in between the Chicago Bears and the overmatched New England Patriots, gambling establishments used bets on whether Bears protective lineman - and occasional running back - William "Refrigerator" Perry would score a touchdown. The enjoyment around that sideshow kept fan interest going during a 46-10 blowout.


Perry did end up scoring, and the prop bet took off from there.


Prop bets are wagers that depend upon a result within a game however not its outcome. They can typically involve a professional athlete's specific efficiency in some statistical category - for instance, how lots of yards a running back will rush for, the number of rebounds a basketball center will secure, or the number of strikeouts a pitcher will have. They've become routine offerings on sports wagering menus.


For example: As I write this, I am looking at a FanDuel account I opened years ago, seeing that, for the Green Bay Packers-Pittsburgh Steelers video game currently in progress, I can place a wager on which gamer will score a touchdown, the number of backyards each quarterback will toss for and much, much more. As the game progresses, the chances constantly shift - permitting what are called "live bets."


Returning to my trainee who lost the bet on Lawrence's pass conclusion: It's possible he 'd positioned a bet on Lawrence to throw fewer than a set number of yards. Or he could have become part of a fantasy league, which is likewise based on private gamer efficiencies.


In either case, an issue with prop bets, from an viewpoint, is that an individual can typically control the outcome. You do not need a group of gamers to be in on it - which is what happened during the notorious Black Sox Scandal, when eight gamers on the Chicago White Sox were implicated of conspiring with bettors to intentionally lose the 1919 World Series.


In the indictment against him, Rozier is accused of telling a co-defendant to pass along information to particular gamblers that he planned to leave a March 2023 game early - a move everyone involved understood suggested he would not reach his statistical criteria for the game. They might then place bets that he would not hit those marks.


In baseball, meanwhile, Luis Ortiz of the Cleveland Guardians was positioned on leave during the 2025 season and is under examination for possibly illegally betting on the result of 2 pitches he threw. MLB authorities are essentially attempting to figure out if he intentionally tossed balls rather than strikes in two instances. (Yes, prop bets have ended up being so granular that you can even wager on whether a pitcher will toss a ball or a strike on a private pitch.)


An exploding market with no end in sight


The appeal of prop bets feeds into an around the world sports betting industry that has experienced explosive growth and shows no indication of slowing.


Since the U.S. Supreme Court in 2018 ruled that states could pick whether to enable sports wagering, 39 states plus the District of Columbia have actually done so.


The leagues and media are more than just bystanders. FanDuel and DraftKings are official sports wagering partners of the NBA and the NFL.


In the days after the Supreme Court ruling, I questioned whether reporters would welcome sports wagering. Nowadays, ESPN not only has a wagering program, however it likewise has a wagering app.


According to the American Gaming Association, sportsbooks collected a record $13.71 billion in income in 2024 from about $150 billion in wagers. A study launched in February 2025 by Siena and St. Bonaventure universities found that almost half of American guys have an online sports betting account.


But those figures don't start to touch the worldwide sports wagering market, especially the illegal one. The United Nations, in a 2021 report, reported that up to $1.7 trillion is wagered every year in illegal betting markets.


The U.N. report warned that it had found a "shocking scale, symptom, and intricacy of corruption and arranged criminal offense in sport at the international, local, and national levels."


Who's the one in charge?


In early October 2025, I participated in a conference of Play the Game, a Denmark-based organization that promotes "democratic worths in world sports." Its occasional events attract experts from around the globe who are interested in keeping sports fair and safe for everybody.


One of the most sobering subjects was prohibited, online sportsbooks that include betting on all levels of sport, from the most affordable levels of European soccer on up.


It sounded somewhat familiar. This summer at the Little League World Series, which my trainees covered for The Associated Press, supervisors grumbled about offshore sportsbooks offering lines on the tournament, which is played by 12-year-old amateurs.


And with so much prohibited betting in the world, the issue of match repairing was bound to come up.


One session screened a recent German documentary on match repairing. Meanwhile, Anca-Maria Gherghel, a Ph.D. prospect at Sheffield Hallam University and senior researcher for EPIC Global Solutions, both in northern England, told me how she had spoken with an expert female soccer gamer for a group in Cyprus. The gamer explained how she and her teammates were routinely approached with profitable offers to throw matches.


Put everything together - the vast amounts of cash at play and the relative ease of fixing a prop bet, let alone a match - and you can not be surprised at the NBA scandal.


I utilized to think that gambling was simply a sector of the larger sports industry. Now, I wonder whether I had it exactly backwards.