NBA Wants Sportsbooks to Stop Accepting Certain Bets and Limit Parlays

The NBA continues to try to influence sportsbooks and prediction markets, as the association is concerned about the integrity of its sport and has called on betting companies to take action against certain markets. Certain Types of Bets Must Go, NBA Says After Adam Silver, the association’s commissioner, called on prediction markets to grant the body access to their data to help hamper attempts at insider trading, the NBA has distributed a memo to authorized gambling operators, which include FanDuel and DraftKings. This took place on Friday, October 16, with leagues asked to prohibit certain types of sports betting markets, a decision that will also seek to affect player prop parlay wagers, which are among the most popular. The memo, seen by ESPN, specifies that bettors won’t be able to include the under on the same player’s statistics in parlays. This is not the full list, as the NBA has looked into wagers that it argues are “problematic.” Among the wagers are bets on the winner of the opening tip, specific shots, and under bets on players who are expected to play fewer than 12 minutes in a specific game. These restrictions, the league believes, will ensure that the integrity of the sport is maintained, while the league is also beginning to look into sports event contracts. Commenting for ESPN, Scott Kaufman-Ross, NBA executive vice president, said: “There’s a balance between ensuring that we are removing problematic bet types but also ensuring that we don’t just move activity into the illegal market. And where we landed right now, we think, is the right balance of those two objectives.” FanDuel was also contacted by ESPN, with a spokesperson responding that the company was prepared to comply, pointing out that the legalized betting industry was built on a “foundation of dialogue.” Prediction Markets Are Not Off the Hook – In Theory “We remain unwavering in our commitment to building a legal and regulated market that roots out abuses by those who seek to undermine fair competition and damage the integrity of the games we love,” the spokesperson added. Kaufman-Ross explained that the league has taken a long time to discuss what bets should be prohibited, arguing that “low likelihood, high payout bets” were a prime target, and drawing a comparison to the Jontay Porter and Terry Rozier saga, involving pro NBA athletes who made it possible for third parties to profit from game outcomes. These measures are meant to apply universally across platforms – including prediction market platforms- but without actual partnerships in place, their enforcement remains a difficult matter, Kaufman-Ross acknowledged himself.