In the wake of gambling scandals that rocked the league last season, the NBA has worked with partner sportsbooks to limit some of the kinds of bets that would be easiest to manipulate and could lead to future scandals, a change first reported by David Purdum and Shams Charania of ESPN and confirmed by NBC Sports.
The league informed teams of this in a memo. Specifically, consumers of these domestic sportsbooks will be banned from placing bets on things such as:
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• Parlays of prop bet unders on the same player (bets that a player will not reach a threshold on points, rebounds, assists, etc.).
• Prop bet unders on a player averaging or expected to play fewer than 12 minutes.
• “First-of” bets such as who will score the first basket, make the first 3-pointer, have the first block, as well as who will win the opening tip of the game.
In addition, people who could have access to inside information bettors would want — players, coaches, training staff — will undergo in-person training on the league’s betting rules.
All of these rules will be applied to the WNBA as well, starting next season.
These rules do not apply to prediction markets such as Kalshi or Polymarket. The NBA worked with its partners, such as FanDuel and DraftKings, to limit specific bets, but the league doesn’t have the same kind of partnership with prediction markets. That said, those markets have other NBA ties, such as Giannis Antetokounmpo investing in Kalshi and appearing in its commercials, and LeBron James having a sponsorship deal with Polymarket.
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All of this follows in the wake of last year’s arrests of now-former Miami guard Terry Rozier, former Portland Trail Blazers coach Chauncey Billups, and former NBA guard Damon Jones. Jones pled guilty and is working with federal prosecutors, while the Billups and Rozier cases are still moving through the legal system. Rozier is charged with conspiring with individuals tied to organized crime to win prop bet unders on a game in March 2023, when Rozier was with the Charlotte Hornets. Similar charges led Commissioner Adam Silver to ban former Raptor Jontay Porter for life back in 2024.
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