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

John Affleck does not work for, speak with, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has actually disclosed no pertinent associations beyond their academic visit.


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


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


When I first found out about the arrests of Portland Trail Blazers coach Chauncey Billups, Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier and previous NBA gamer Damon Jones in connection to federal investigations including illegal betting, I couldn't help however think about a current moment in my sports composing class.


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


I considered that moment because it exposed how common sports betting has actually become, just how much the types of bets have actually changed gradually, and - provided these patterns - how it's ignorant to think gamers will not continue to be tempted to video game the system.


The prop bet hits it big


I've been following the advancement 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 primarily confined to Las Vegas, the basic bets tended to be connected to choosing a winner or which group would cover a point spread.


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


Perry did wind up scoring, and the prop bet removed from there.


Prop bets are wagers that depend on a result within a game but not its last outcome. They can frequently include a professional athlete's private efficiency in some statistical classification - for instance, how numerous yards a running back will hurry 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 betting menus.


For instance: 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 presently in progress, I can put a wager on which gamer will score a touchdown, the number of backyards each quarterback will throw for and much, a lot more. As the game advances, the chances constantly shift - permitting what are called "live bets."


Returning to my student 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 variety of lawns. Or he could have become part of a dream league, which is likewise based on private player efficiencies.


In either case, an issue with prop bets, from an anti-corruption point of view, is that a person can often control the result. You don't require a group of gamers to be in on it - which is what happened during the notorious Black Sox Scandal, when 8 gamers on the Chicago White Sox were accused of conspiring with gamblers to intentionally lose the 1919 World Series.


In the indictment against him, Rozier is accused of telling a co-defendant to pass along details to particular bettors that he prepared to leave a March 2023 game early - a move everyone included knew meant he would not reach his statistical benchmarks for the video game. They could then place bets that he would not hit those marks.


In baseball, on the other hand, Luis Ortiz of the Cleveland Guardians was put on leave during the 2025 season and is under investigation for perhaps illegally betting on the result of two pitches he threw. MLB authorities are essentially trying to figure out if he deliberately tossed balls as opposed to strikes in two instances. (Yes, prop bets have actually become so granular that you can even bank on whether a pitcher will toss a ball or a strike on an individual pitch.)


An exploding market without any end in sight


The appeal of prop bets feeds into a worldwide sports betting market that has experienced explosive development and reveals no sign of slowing.


Since the U.S. Supreme Court in 2018 ruled that states might select whether to permit sports wagering, 39 states plus the District of Columbia have done so.


The leagues and media are more than simply bystanders. FanDuel and DraftKings are main sports wagering of the NBA and the NFL.


In the days after the Supreme Court ruling, I wondered whether journalists would welcome sports wagering. Nowadays, ESPN not just has a wagering show, however it likewise has a wagering app.


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


But those figures don't start to touch the around the world sports wagering market, particularly the illegal one. The United Nations, in a 2021 report, reported that approximately $1.7 trillion is bet every year in unlawful betting markets.


The U.N. report warned that it had actually found a "shocking scale, symptom, and complexity of corruption and arranged criminal activity in sport at the worldwide, local, and nationwide levels."


Who's in charge?


In early October 2025, I participated in a conference of Play the Game, a Denmark-based company that promotes "democratic worths in world sports." Its periodic events attract professionals from around the world who are interested in keeping sports reasonable 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 season at the Little League World Series, which my students covered for The Associated Press, managers complained about overseas sportsbooks providing lines on the competition, which is played by 12-year-old beginners.


And with so much unlawful wagering in the world, the problem of match fixing was bound to come up.


One session evaluated a recent German documentary on match fixing. Meanwhile, Anca-Maria Gherghel, a Ph.D. candidate at Sheffield Hallam University and senior scientist for EPIC Global Solutions, both in northern England, told me how she had actually interviewed a professional female soccer gamer for a team in Cyprus. The player explained how she and her teammates were routinely approached with rewarding offers to toss matches.


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


I used to believe that gambling was just a section of the larger sports market. Now, I wonder whether I had it exactly backward.