Sports Gambling Is a Ticking Time Bomb
Some of the biggest scandals in sports history have revolved around players and gambling. Pete Rose is barred for life from baseball, in an agreement stemming from admissions of gambling. The Black Sox scandal, about a thrown World Series, is perhaps the most notorious sports debacle of all time.
Yet in a rush to embrace the potential profits provided by new forms of legalized sports gambling, the professional sports leagues have put players, and the people close to them, under untenable pressure. I have represented professional athletes for 50 years and I have never seen a situation that’s more perilous to them and the integrity of sports.
These aren’t just hypothetical concerns: Jontay Porter, a center for the Toronto Raptors, was recently barred for life from the N.B.A. after a league investigation found that he’d shared confidential information with a bettor, resulting in large wagers on his performance. As the new baseball season was starting, federal prosecutors said the interpreter for the star pitcher Shohei Ohtani had stolen millions from Mr. Ohtani to pay off gambling debts to an illegal sports bookie. Major League Baseball is investigating Mr. Ohtani’s former teammate David Fletcher over allegations that he placed bets with the same bookie.
Pro sports depends on authenticity and credibility. Fans must believe that the games are fair and that each athlete is making the maximum effort to win. Any suggestion that the contests might be fixed or tainted will destroy the industry.
The appearance of integrity has always been central to the success of sports. When I started as an agent a half-century ago, the major leagues all considered it so crucial to maintain distance between the worlds of gambling and athletics that they agreed that Las Vegas — then the only place where sports gambling was legal — should not have professional franchises.
Everything changed when, on May 14, 2018, in the case of Murphy v. N.C.A.A., the Supreme Court struck down a decades-old federal law that effectively banned sports betting outside Nevada. Within weeks, New Jersey had established legitimate sports betting at its casinos and racetracks. Thirty-seven states quickly followed suit.
