Legal betting changed sports. Now it’s changing the players.

On October 1, 2023, Los Angeles Lakers star forward LeBron James took to Instagram Live to share his thoughts on the Dolphins-Bills NFL matchup with his 159 million followers:

“Between the Dolphins and Buffalo, Don’t be putting up your life savings on my picks, this ain’t for the bettings and whatever y’all be doing, this is just because I love football and I’m a fan of the game… I’m gonna go with Buffalo to give Miami their first loss today.”

Three months later, the four-time NBA champion announced a deal with DraftKings, where he would continue to make football picks in partnership with the sportsbook in 2024.

Meanwhile, seven NFL players were suspended indefinitely for betting on football games during the 2023 season.

Welcome to the messy relationship between sports betting and professional leagues in 2024.

In the US, gambling has long been a taboo topic in the realm of pro sports. The phrase “sports betting” evoked images of Pete Rose, who was permanently barred from the MLB’s Hall of Fame after allegations he'd wagered bets on games he played in and managed, and Tim Donaghy, the disgraced former NBA official who was sentenced to 15 months in prison for betting on games that he'd officiated in the 2000s. 

NBA color commentators would, on occasion, make witty allusions to “Vegas” and “bad beats” when a reserve shooting guard busted a betting line with an otherwise inconsequential 3-pointer at the end of a game, but sports betting was otherwise given the Lord Voldemort treatment: never to be spoken of directly.

Then everything changed in May 2018 after the Supreme Court essentially legalized sports gambling. Six years later, 39 states now offer some form of legal sports betting, with more than half offering online sportsbooks. Americans bet an astounding $119B+ on sports in 2023, up 27.5% from the year before. Those bets yielded nearly $11 billion in revenue, a jump of 44.5% from 2022. Sports betting has proved to be a lucrative business.

Professional sports leagues have benefited as well, thanks to high-priced advertising deals. Sportsbooks, racing to claim market share in the nascent market, have paid top dollar to get in front of fans. DraftKings, for example, spent $185M, $495M, and $981M on sales and marketing in 2019, 2020, and 2021, respectively. The bet appears to have paid off, as DKNG’s stock is up more than 300% since announcing its IPO in 2020.

One group that hasn’t benefited from this influx of money? The athletes. Players aren’t allowed to engage in sports betting in their own sports (and some leagues ban betting on other sports as well), but sports betting has certainly been engaging with them.

After practice two weeks ago, Boston Celtics forward Jayson Tatum said: “Fans yell shit all the time, shoot one more three, get one more rebound, get 25 before the half is over… I guess I do feel bad when I don't hit people's parlays. I don’t want them lose money.”

Should we be surprised? It feels like every NFL television broadcast is brought to you by DraftKings. FanDuel paints its logo on the Bulls’ and Raptors’ home courts. Podcasts are saturated with discount codes for free play. And now the NBA will let you bet in real time via NBA League Pass.

With prop bets ranging from whether Klay Thompson hits the over on 6.5 3-point attempts to the odds that a kicker will hit the uprights on a field-goal attempt, gambling is no longer an extra business layered on top of the outcomes of professional sporting events. The sportsbooks are the business, and the games happen to be something for us to bet on.

Pacers guard Tyrese Haliburton summed up this new reality during an interview posted on X, saying: “To half the world, I’m just helping them make money on DraftKings or whatever. I’m a prop.”

The explosion of sports betting isn’t just affecting the relationship between fans and players; it’s threatening the integrity of games themselves as more and more players are being investigated for their involvement in sports-betting scandals.

In 2023 alone, more NFL players — 10 —served suspensions for sports betting than in all other years of league history combined. These suspensions impact teams’ salaries and personnel decisions. The Detroit Lions alone had four players suspended, and three of them were ultimately cut from the team. Detroit also lost the NFC Championship game by 3 points, narrowly missing a Super Bowl appearance. Would those three players have changed the outcome of their season? Maybe.

Jontay Porter, a role player for the Toronto Raptors, is being investigated for betting irregularities surrounding prop bets on his stat lines in a January 26 match. DraftKings said the under on Porter’s made 3-pointers for a game was the biggest money on player props across the entire NBA that day, despite Porter being a little-known player who currently ranks 383rd in the NBA in total points scored.

The (arguably) best player in baseball, Shohei Ohtani, said that his longtime interpreter and friend, Ippei Mizuhara, stole millions of dollars from him to repay his own overseas gambling debts, rocking the LA Dodgers’ organization in the most absurd sports story of the year.

When sports betting was legalized, leagues wanted to have their cake and eat it, too, thinking they could benefit from sportsbook revenue without it adversely affecting the game. But let's be real: when the NFL signed advertising agreements with seven different sportsbooks, the cost of doing business was seven indefinite player suspensions. As long as pro leagues play ball with sportsbooks, expect player scandals to continue.