As professional sports leagues continue sifting through the implications of the legalized sports betting ecosystem their commissioners pushed for, they are not the only ones profiting from it. In the NBA, at least, some of its biggest stars are also cashing in.
It has made for a bizarre landscape. The league is dealing with the fallout of a federal indictment that alleged an illegal sports gambling scheme involving two players. At the same time, sports gambling ads continue to pepper game broadcasts, and sportsbooks are among the major advertisers for the league and many of its teams.
America’s obsession with betting has created havoc for NBA players, who have faced a torrent of abuse from fans and spoken out publicly about it. For most NBA players, taking the blame for lost wagers and parlays is just a fact of life. But for a handful of the league’s stars, legalized betting has also created a new way to make money.
Unlike their peers in other major leagues, NBA players can invest in sports gambling companies and advertise for them, a right negotiated in the 2023 collective bargaining agreement. Players can obtain passive shares in sports betting and fantasy sports companies as long as they own less than a 50 percent stake in a company that doesn’t allow wagering on the NBA or don’t exceed a 1 percent stake in a company that takes bets on the NBA. Players also negotiated the ability to promote and endorse these companies as long as they didn’t promote bets on the NBA. Players cannot bet on the NBA, WNBA or G League.
Now, marquee names like LeBron James, Kevin Durant and Giannis Antetokounmpo have gotten into the game, creating an uneasy juxtaposition as other players have bemoaned the effects of gambling and verbal assault from fans. James was the first to become an American gambling pitchman when he signed a deal with DraftKings two years ago. He has touted NFL games and teamed up in commercials with comedian Kevin Hart.
Three years ago, Kevin Durant groused about fans hitting him up for money after losing bets.
“When I get ya paid, u don’t DM me and send a small percentage to my cashapp, but when them parlays don’t hit, I’m every name in the book. Y’all ain’t real,” he tweeted.
The next year, he became a FanDuel sponsor.
Antetokounmpo is just the latest to join the fray, doing so with Kalshi, a predictions market that until last week allowed users to bet on whether he would be traded. NBA commissioner Adam Silver said Antetokounmpo has a “minuscule” share of the company, totaling less than 1 percent, although the exact number of shares Antetokounmpo owns has not been reported.
Nikola Jokić became a sponsor of Superbet in his native Serbia just months after the current CBA passed. In September, Lonzo Ball took an equity stake in Jake Paul’s betting company, Betr Media.
Those deals have come during a wave of complaints and protests from players about the effects of sports gambling and as several players have been indicted as part of a federal investigation into a betting ring that allegedly traded on insider information. The league has also sharpened its approach to limit illicit gambling since the federal government charged Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier in October for an alleged role in an illegal sports gambling ring on NBA games that hinged on using non-public information. Rozier is accused of telling a friend he would come out of a game early, who then allegedly sold that info to sports gamblers. Former Toronto Raptors center Jontay Porter was banned from the league and pled guilty to one federal charge for doing something similar; the NBA also found that he wagered on NBA games.
Gambling has created an even more uncomfortable player-fan dynamic, both in arenas and online. Indiana Pacers star Tyrese Haliburton contextualized how sports gambling has had a dehumanizing effect on players.
“To half the world, I’m just helping them make money on DraftKings or whatever,” he said back in 2024.
Boston Celtics star Jaylen Brown, a vice president for the NBA’s Players’ Association, outlined the side effects of legalized gambling for players in October. The NBA, he said, has not adequately addressed the player safety implications.
“That whole world was introduced a couple years ago, and I don’t think they took players into consideration, especially with the energy and the behavior that goes around gambling and how that directly correlates to players,” Brown said this fall. “We don’t benefit from any of the profits or anything like that, but we’ve got to deal with a lot of the extra negativity and scrutiny behind all the gambling stuff. And then, on top of that, it creates more integrity issues, etc. So I’m not sure what the answer is going forward, but definitely something that people have got to spend more time having conversations about.”
While Brown said only the NBA profited from its association with sports gambling, players have as well. The league’s sports gambling partnerships make up 1 percent of the league’s revenue, according to a league source, and players receive half of that through their share of basketball-related revenue.
Brown helped negotiate the last CBA. That helped open the door for a handful of players to boost their profits, too.