David J. Butler
Legalized sports gambling didn’t cause the NBA’s scandal. It made it inevitable. When professional sports leagues embraced betting — not merely tolerated it but built it into their business model — they created an environment where corruption wasn’t a risk; it was a certainty. Indictments of more than two dozen defendants — including Portland Trail Blazers coach Chauncey Billups and Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier — are shocking but not illogical. We turned basketball into a casino, then acted surprised when someone played the house.
Until 2018, when the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the federal ban on sports betting, gambling sat on the edge of American sports like a live wire. After legalization, that wire was plugged in. Odds appeared on broadcasts, teams signed sportsbook deals and apps made wagering effortless.
Gambling didn’t just arrive. It took over. Sportsbooks don’t just sponsor games; they shape them. Betting platforms bankroll coverage and own shows. The house doesn’t just win — it runs the place.
The modern market revolves around prop bets and micro-bets, tiny slices of a game that can be quietly manipulated. A single substitution or “rest day” can tilt thousands of wagers. You don’t have to fix a game. All you have to do is bend a moment. A prop bet targets a specific event: how many points a player scores, who makes the first basket. A micro-bet shrinks the window to a single play. If prop bets opened the door to insider advantage, micro-bets blew it off.
Insider information is now currency. Coaches, trainers, players and fixers sit on valuable nonpublic data. A rotation change or injury report can be weaponized. In financial markets, trading on inside information is a felony. In sports betting, it’s the model. Leagues claim their “integrity units” protect the game. But no unit can police markets that reset every few seconds. Micro-bets are too fast and too granular to police. And those best positioned to profit are closest to the floor.
For most of the 20th century, gambling was sports’ bright red line. Pete Rose was banned from baseball for life for crossing it back then. Now it’s a revenue engine. The firewall is gone, replaced by sponsorships and equity stakes. The damage is visible. A recent survey found that six in 10 Americans doubt the integrity of sports, suspecting players, referees and coaches of throwing games. That isn’t paranoia; it’s a rational reaction.
Addiction is also part of the story. Thirty-seven percent of American adults — and 60% of avid fans — have placed a sports bet. Nearly half of men 18 to 49 have an online betting account. The same leagues that once treated gambling as a threat now rely on it for cash, even as it erodes the trust they need to survive.
Sports once offered a shared space that felt larger than ourselves. Now fandom is collateral damage. We refresh apps and track odds until the game itself fades. When the bet is settled, the score barely matters. The emotional spine of sports — loyalty, belief, shared experience — is being replaced by speculation. Meanwhile, leagues are tied to the companies they claim to regulate. Networks stream live odds and leagues hold stakes in data firms powering sportsbooks. The watchdog has merged with the casino.
If we’re serious about protecting sports, it is the structure — not just the symptoms — that must change. First, ban prop bets tied to individual performance. Let people wager on who wins or loses. The precision tools insiders use to cash in need to go.
Second, restrict in-game micro-betting. When wagers reset constantly, temptation and opportunity multiply. Limiting most bets to pregame windows or broad categories would give monitors a chance to spot crooked patterns.
Third, rebuild the firewall between leagues and gambling. Oversight must be independent, with investigative power and no revenue ties. No revenue sharing or branding. No gambling logos on jerseys or courts. No pretending you can sell the casino on Monday and police it on Tuesday.
Fourth, regulate insider information like financial markets. Injury reports, rest decisions and lineups are market-moving events. They should be time-stamped, audited and protected. Tip off a fixer and face lifetime bans and, where appropriate, criminal charges.
Finally, tackle the incentive problem. Leagues, broadcasting networks and states are hooked on gambling revenue. When your business depends on betting, integrity becomes a cost center, not a priority. Cap the percentage of revenue leagues can take. Tie sportsbook licenses to enforceable integrity rules and revoke them when they’re violated.
None of this is technically difficult. What’s hard is the will. Gambling props up teams, media deals and state budgets. But scandal after scandal will erode belief that the competition is real. Professional sports depend on one fragile idea — that the contest is honest. When fans stop believing, the game becomes theater. And no one bets their loyalty on theater.
We built this system: micro-markets, insider edges, the marriage of sports leagues and sportsbooks. To stop corruption, we must unbuild it. That means simpler markets, real independence and courage to walk away from easy money. Could it happen? Yes. Will it? Only if owners, commissioners and politicians value long-term trust over short-term cash. Right now, that’s the wager — and the odds aren’t good.
David J. Butler is an attorney. He is president of Dvash Consulting, LLC and a member of the ownership group of Mid-Atlantic Media, which owns and publishes Washington Jewish Week.
