The NBA and its commercial sportsbook partners, including FanDuel and DraftKings, are looking at possible changes to player prop bet offerings. The fallout from the Jontay Porter betting scandal prompted a close look at what is taking place now. An outright ban on NBA player props isn’t going to happen. That could drive bettors back to illegal markets. Instead, NBA prop betting changes will likely come in the form of adjustments to bet offerings.
More discussion between the NBA and its sportsbook partners will likely come before next season starts. Among the changes discussed is not offering prop bets on players on two-way contracts or on 10-day contracts. There is some logic behind that. A player like Porter, who was making $415,000, is likelier to influence games than somebody making $8 million annually. Players making the minimum salary are also possible targets for a prop bet ban. Prohibiting bans on players on rookie contracts has also been discussed, but you also have players like Victor Wembanyama. He may be on a rookie contract but is soon about to be an extremely wealthy young man. Wembanyama is also a popular player and most likely drew his fair share of prop bets.
Among the more extreme measures discussed was to only let bettors wager on the over in player props. That’s a disaster waiting to wait to happen. If only over bets are allowed, there’s nothing to prevent the sportsbooks from shading the line too high. If it’s too high, however, bettors could go back to offshore online sports betting, which the NBA and its partners don’t want to see. Any NBA prop betting changes are going to be more subtle.
NBA Needs to Walk Fine Line
The NBA wants people to wager on its games. The league receives a lot of money from sportsbooks for partnerships. The NBA also wants to ensure that its games are perceived as legitimate.
“Since states began legalizing sports betting in 2018, we have worked closely with betting operators as well as integrity monitoring organizations to put in place essential monitoring and reporting systems so that we are best positioned to identify potential betting anomalies and to act to protect the integrity of our game,” the NBA said in a statement to ESPN.
The NBA doesn’t need more incidents like Porter passing sports gambling tips to his buddies. A multi-billion dollar industry has to look after its own interests. The most likely outcome is going to be some smaller NBA prop betting changes beginning with the 2024-25 season. There will probably be fewer players to have prop bet offerings in the games. It will be business as usual for all of the big-name players. There may be even more bets offered on the stars to make-up for a reduction of offerings on the role players. That’s something the league and the sportsbooks can live with moving forward.
If the NBA and its partner sportsbooks are too restrictive on bet offerings, the illegal market is waiting to pounce. The league and its partners will find the right balance to keep the highest number of bettors happy and coming back for more.
For gambling news, betting odds, and more, visit Point Spreads Sports Magazine.