American sports spent more than a century keeping gambling as far away as possible, in the name of preserving competitive purity and repelling scandal and corruption.
Now, less than six years after the Supreme Court opened the door for states to embrace legal sports betting, major U.S. leagues are already confronting the darker sides of sports betting with alarming frequency. And at the heart of the problems is the population whose ability to bet on sports is the most severely curbed: the athletes themselves.
The past two weeks alone have seen players across the major professional and college leagues drawn into a building avalanche of gambling scandals that showed just how perilous the new landscape has become.
Earlier this month, the National Basketball Association fielded complaints from players and a head coach about betting’s growing influence and its potential dangers. Days later, Toronto Raptors forward Jontay Porter became the subject of a league investigation of alleged suspicious betting activity. The National Football League, meanwhile, suspended 10 players for betting just last year.
The controversies have extended into the collegiate ranks as well.
In the buildup to March Madness—the biggest sports-betting event in America—the Temple University men’s basketball team was flagged by prominent gambling watchdog firm U.S. Integrity for suspicious wagering activity on its games.
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