In response to recent betting scandals, the NBA has ordered its sportsbook partners to ban or limit certain types of bets, according to ESPN’s David Purdum and Shams Charania.
A memo sent to the league’s authorized gaming operators, including DraftKings and FanDuel, ordered those bookies to make the following adjustments, according to ESPN:
- Players will not be allowed to group “less than” bets on the same player in an express.
- Note: An express is a single bet where multiple bets are grouped together for a larger payout. Each part of the express must win for the bet to pay.
- Bettors will not be able to place “under” bets on a player scheduled to play less than 12 minutes.
- First-out micro bets, such as which team will win the kickoff or which player will make the first basket in a game, are not permitted.
Under existing agreements with sports books, the NBA has the right to limit the bets its affiliates offer, Purdum and Charanya explained, noting that the league estimates its affiliates account for roughly 99% of the U.S. betting market.
“There’s a balance between removing problematic types of bids while also ensuring that we’re not just moving activity into the illegal market,” NBA Executive Vice President Scott Kaufman-Ross said ESPN. “And we think it’s the right balance of those two goals.”
An “under” bet on a specific player means that the bettor is betting that the player will not reach certain statistical thresholds in categories such as points, rebounds or assists. Express bets using “insufficient” props have been at the center of recent betting scandals involving former NBA players such as Jontay Porter and Terry Rozier.
Porter, who was banned from NBAadmitted in court that he checked out of games early to help bettors who were betting on “insufficient” props. Federal prosecutors charged Rozier with the same act in a March 2023 game in which he was forced out with an injury after playing just nine minutes. He denied the charges and pleaded not guilty — his case remains unsolved.
As Charanya points out (via Twitter), the new list of betting restrictions will add to restrictions imposed in the past, including the inability to bet on 10-day or two-way players, as well as bans on prop bets related to turnovers, fouls and missed free throws.
