MW How DraftKings figured out NBA player Jontay Porter was betting on games
By Weston Blasi
The NBA and other major sports leagues make millions from legalized gambling. It could end up costing them.
Since the nationwide ban on sports betting was lifted by the Supreme Court in 2018, dozens of professional athletes have broken their leagues' rules on gambling.
Most recently, Toronto Raptors center Jontay Porter was banned for life from the NBA after he placed at least 13 bets on NBA games using an associate's sportsbook account, disclosed confidential information to bettors, and limited his participation in at least one game so that a certain bet would pay out.
Porter didn't place any bets on the Raptors to win or lose, but he did give confidential information to a bettor about his injury status for a game.
Porter placed $76,059 worth of bets on NBA games and won $21,965.
Dozens of other professional athletes have been disciplined for gambling since 2018.
In the NFL, wide receiver Cavin Ridley was suspended for one year for betting on NFL games while he was injured, and wide receiver Jameson Williams was suspended six games for using betting apps on his phone while at his team's facility. The NHL's Shane Pinto was suspended for 44 games for violating the league's wagering rules. And two PGA Tour golfers were suspended for betting on tour events: Vince India, who received a six-month suspension, and Jake Staiano, who was suspended for three months.
Each sports league has its own set of rules on general gambling, but one rule is universal: no betting on your own sport.
With so many sports leagues and their TV partners promoting gambling in recent years, it was just a matter of time before athletes playing the sports that fans bet on were going to start betting too, said Andrew Zimbalist, professor emeritus of economics at Smith College and a leading expert on the economics of sports.
"It was really likely it was going to happen, and it's really likely it's going to happen a lot more. Everybody, even if they are rich, wants to get richer," Zimbalist told MarketWatch.
Sports betting is legal in 38 states as well as in Washington, D.C., and bets can be made via mobile phone in 30 of those states.
How did Porter get caught?
Sportsbooks have sophisticated methods of detecting unusual betting activity.
In January, armed with massive amounts of data from millions of accounts tracking betting trends, deposits and big bets, DraftKings $(DKNG)$ and one other unnamed sportsbook were able to identify that Porter's proposition bets were the biggest money winners for bettors among any NBA player props from games. Such a high betting volume is extraordinary for a player who has averaged 22nd in number of minutes played of any Raptors player this season.
A similar situation happened again in March: Porter exited a game with an apparent illness after playing just three minutes, and there was an unusual amount of betting action on Porter's "under" statistics that night. Betting on the under means, for example, that a player will score fewer than five points and have fewer than two assists.
An investigation into those wagers led to his lifetime ban several months later.
The bet, which was an $80,000 parlay proposition wager - meaning all aspects of the wager would have to win in order for the bet to pay - would have paid out $1.1 million. But due to the suspicious activity associated with the bet, it was frozen and not paid out.
"DraftKings is proud to have played a role in identifying and bringing to light suspicious activity to the league, and this is a prime example of the regulated market working as intended. We will continue to work closely with the industry and our league partners so that fans and players can focus on experiencing the joy of the games," Jennifer Aguiar, DraftKings' chief compliance officer, told MarketWatch.
In fact, it's the sportsbooks that inform sports leagues of unusual betting activity. The process involves security and compliance teams that monitor who is betting, where they are betting and any irregular bets, sports leagues say.
"In general, it is important to note that one of the many benefits of legal and regulated sports betting is that sports-betting operators identify and report suspicious activity, and the integrity of sport is therefore protected in a manner that does not exist in the illegal market," DraftKings said about the Porter incident.
See also: NBA player Dillon Brooks on how he invests the $125 million he's made - and which opponent is the hardest to defend
Zimbalist said that athletes betting on games they participate in may be more prevalent than is known, and that it could potentially go undetected in sports like tennis and golf, as well as in college sports. That's because athletes who aren't top earners in those sports tend to make less money than players in leagues like the NBA and NFL.
Many NBA players make over $10 million a year and likely wouldn't risk being suspended in exchange for something like a $50,00 betting payout. Porter earned $411,794 this season as a two-way player, per HoopsHype, and has made about $2.7 million during his four years in the NBA.
"If a gambling group comes to you and says, 'Look, I don't need you to throw the game, I just need you to not score any points in the second half,' the individual might say, 'Hey, I can do that, and nobody will be able to catch me and I can still help my team win, and I can get $50k doing that.' That's something that could appeal to thousands of athletes," Zimbalist said.
NCAA President Charlie Baker has urged states with legal wagering to ban prop bets on college sports in order to protect college athletes and the integrity of those sports.
How sports leagues got into bed with gambling companies
After years of not wanting anything to do with sports gambling, the NFL inked official sportsbook partnerships in 2021 with Caesars $(CZR)$, DraftKings and FanDuel $(FLUT)$ that are worth a combined $1 billion. As part of the deal, the sportsbooks have integrated their betting content into NFL media, such as the league's website, app and the popular NFL Redzone show.
ESPN $(DIS)$, which broadcasts NFL, MLB, NBA and NHL games, has been showing game-betting odds since 2021, and TNT $(WBD)$ now does live gambling-odds segments during games. The NBA was the first league to push for legal gambling, spearheaded by commissioner Adam Silver.
"I believe that sports betting should be brought out of the underground and into the sunlight where it can be appropriately monitored and regulated," Silver said in a 2014 op-ed in the New York Times.
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From a fan's perspective, it's getting confusing trying to figure out what exactly athletes are and aren't allowed to do.
For example, in the NBA, players can't bet on any basketball properties including the WNBA, G-League, Summer League or the NBA draft, but they can bet on other sports. And NBA players can have sponsorship deals with a sportsbook - LeBron James, for example, has an endorsement deal with DraftKings in which he will pick games each week for the upcoming NFL season.
The MLB, NFL, NBA and NHL didn't respond to MarketWatch's request for comment.
See also: NFL draft prospect Braden Fiske is projected to sign an $8 million deal. Here's how he plans to invest it.
What's next
It's possible that a few publicized instances of players breaking league rules about gambling will have no impact on what fans think about their favorite sports. But if such incidents continue to occur - perhaps involving more high-profile players - they could be a turnoff for fans, even if they are not materially affecting the outcomes of games.
Just last month, a gambling incident involving Shohei Ohtani rocked the baseball world. Ohtani's longtime interpreter Ippei Mizuhara allegedly stole millions from the player and used the money for sports betting. Both the MLB and federal authorities are investigating the actions of Mizuhara, according to a report from ESPN.
"Jumping into bed with the sportsbooks is going to end up hurting the leagues," Zimbalist said. "They were looking for quick bucks, and I think they are going to find there's a lot more costs here that eventually is going to make this a negative experience."
Read on: Super Bowl bets reached a record $23.1 billion this year. But the NFL is trying to keep players from betting a penny of that.
-Weston Blasi
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April 24, 2024 11:52 ET (15:52 GMT)
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