NBA commissioner Adam Silver spoke at the Associated Press Sports Editors Commissioners Conference in New York City on Monday and discussed a number of topics around the league, including the recent betting scandal involving Toronto Raptors two-way player Jontay Porter.
Porter was banned from the NBA for life after the league found that he violated gambling policies by "disclosing confidential information to sports bettors, limiting his own participation in one or more games for betting purposes and betting on NBA games."
In the aftermath of Porter's punishment, ESPN reported that the NBA was in discussions with sportsbooks about changing the type of bets that are available, specifically prop bets on two-way players.
Here are Silver's comments when asked about that report:
"We only have so much control," Silver said. "For example, the NCAA has made the point about the risk to college players. There's a large pool of players in college whose careers will end after they participate in college athletics, so there's not as much at stake. There's clearly a lot more at stake for a superstar player than there is for a two-way player.
"So it goes to the kinds of players those bets can be placed on, and then the types of bets as well. Certainly, prop bets, depending on how precise they are, lend themselves to more shenanigans than other kind of bets. Now, some of that can be captured through various monitoring, but we also recognize that a large amount of the handle -- I'm not sure the precise percentage -- but my hunch is there's still far more illegal [betting] than legal.
"There are limits to our control, but we think there should be a regulated framework, where it's the leagues working together with the state oversight groups and the betting companies, whether or not we have partnerships with them. In some cases we have partnerships with, just take DraftKings and FanDuel, where we don't have absolute control, but when we have a marketing partnership with those companies we have a lot more say than with companies where we have no partnership whatsover. Then we're relying on them doing a broader based concern about integrity in the industry and them not running afoul of the regulators."
While Porter's ban was the most substantial betting-related story of the season, it was far from the only one.
Players and coaches around the league reported multiple incidents in which fans harassed them at games or on social media about bets. Cleveland Cavaliers head coach J.B. Bickerstaff even said that disgruntled gamblers tracked down his phone number and sent him threatening messages.
Now that sports betting has been legalized in many states around the country, partnerships have generated millions and millions of dollars for the league. It's clear, though, that there are plenty of negatives associated with the gambling world, and the NBA still has a lot of work to do to keep its employees safe and regulate the practice.
