The NBA has informed its teams that the league will be enacting several sports betting policies, including a change to injury reporting rules — and that it’s looking to address the tanking issue that’s pervaded the association for years, ESPN’s Shams Charania reported Friday.
The news comes as professional sports leagues try to restrict the scope of prop bets in the wake of federal investigations that have brought criminal charges against members of the NBA and MLB regarding integrity-threatening gambling scandals.
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Notably, Charania reported that the NBA is pushing gaming companies for changes to prop bets concerning individual players.
He listed specific examples of those potential changes:
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limiting maximum amount that can be bet
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limiting population of players
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eliminating problematic bet types, like bets on an action on a single play
“Unders” have especially come under scrutiny in recent months after NBA guard Terry Rozier was among more than 30 people arrested by the FBI as part of two separate illegal gambling-related cases. He was charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud and money laundering.
Prior to a March 2023 game in which he played only about 10 minutes for the Charlotte Hornets, Rozier is alleged to have shared inside information about his early exit, allegedly leading to his co-conspirator bettors wagering more than $200,000 on his under prop bets, according to investigators.
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Former Cleveland Cavaliers player and assistant coach Damon Jones was also arrested. The 49-year-old Jones, who was mentioned in both indictments, allegedly used his NBA ties to share inside information with bettors for profit, including medical information that had not been released to the public.
Jones’ case has called into greater question load management in the NBA and, more specifically, the obscurity surrounding some injuries that unexpectedly sideline players throughout the season. While load management can aid players’ longevity, within a season and a career, it also negatively affects the fan experience, as fans routinely miss out on seeing players perform in games they’ve paid to attend.
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According to Charania, teams will now have to resubmit injury listings on game day between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. local time. They will also have to update public reports every 15 minutes, per Charania.
Those modifications should provide fans and/or bettors more clarity on the injury front and perhaps will limit anyone privy to player-resting information from leveraging it.
The third person arrested in this fall’s scandal with a direct connection to the NBA was Portland Trail Blazers head coach Chauncey Billups. In March 2023, someone matching the exact description of Billups allegedly informed Eric Earnest, one of the six defendants charged, that a collection of the Blazers’ top players wouldn’t play in a game against the Chicago Bulls. Earnest allegedly passed on that insider information, and, before it became public and betting lines shifted dramatically, more than $100,000 was wagered against the Blazers by co-conspirators. The Blazers, who were 32-40 at the time and on the brink of missing the playoffs, lost convincingly, and those bets paid off.
In that way, as Yahoo Sports’ Ben Rohrbach wrote back in October, the NBA’s load management and tanking issues are intertwined.
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As for tanking, Charania reported Friday that the NBA told its teams that it’s conducted another review of potential league policy changes that could disincentivize losing for its bottom dwellers. Those include, according to Charania, possible modifications to rules surrounding draft pick protections as well as potential draft lottery rules revisions.
The league has already tried to combat tanking with a play-in tournament and flattened lottery odds.
