The NBA is enacting several sports betting policies across the league, ESPN’s Shams Charania reported on Friday. Those new policies include updated rules for teams regarding injury reporting, Charania said.
Teams now will be required to resubmit injury listings on game day between 11 am and 1 pm local time and update public reports every 15 minutes, sources tell ESPN.
While Charania didn’t detail what other policy changes would be enacted for NBA teams, he did report the league is also pushing gambling/gaming companies to make changes to prop bets involving individual players. A prop bet, or a proposition bet, is a wager on a specific outcome within a game that isn’t directly connected to the final score or margin of victory. Prop bets on individual players can include gambling on a player’s individual stats, such as points or rebounds. In this area, Charania said the NBA is pushing for changes that include:
– limiting maximum amount that can be bet
– limitations on “unders”
– limiting population of players – eliminating problematic bet types, like bets on an action on a single play
Additionally, Charania reported the NBA has launched a review of league policy changes regarding “tanking” — the practice of deliberately throwing games to try to secure a higher draft pick. He said the league could enact “potential modifications to rules regarding Draft pick protections, revised Draft lottery rules, and other approaches.”
The Portland Trail Blazers are connected to the NBA’s new push to rein in sports betting policies around the league. Blazers suspended head coach Chauncey Billups — who was arrested in late October for his alleged role in poker games run and rigged by organized crime figures — was also not named, but alluded to as an alleged source of information for suspect “inside” bets on a Trail Blazers game in 2023. The person in the case matching Billups’ description allegedly passed off non-public information about the injury status/availability of key Blazers players ahead of the game to give gamblers an edge with their bets.
That Trail Blazers game in 2023, along with other NBA games, are part of a comprehensive sports federal sports betting indictment involving multiple NBA players and organized crime figures. Billups, Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier, and former Cleveland Cavaliers player and assistant coach Damon Jones were among over 30 individuals arrested in late October as part of the FBI’s investigation.
Tanking has been rampant throughout the league for some time now. The Blazers have appeared to participate in the practice in recent years — particularly in the three seasons between 2021 and 2024 — by using the injury list as a way to shut key players down near the end of the season in an effort to lose games for better Draft Lottery odds.