Gambling Issues Dogged Adam Silver’s NBA Before Latest Scandal

Back before the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the federal ban on sports betting in 2018, NBA commissioner Adam Silver was one of the most prominent voices backing its legalization.

In 2014, less than a year after he became commissioner, he penned a now-infamous New York Times op-ed, “Legalize and Regulate Sports Betting.”

Seven years after the Supreme Court ruling, the NBA is mired in sports betting scandals, including Thursday’s arrests of Heat guard Terry Rozier and former NBA player and coach Damon Jones. (Trail Blazers head coach Chauncey Billups was also arrested for his alleged role in a rigged poker scheme with ties to the Mafia.)

Last year, the NBA imposed a lifetime ban on former Raptors player Jontay Porter for violating its gambling rules. Ex-Pistons guard Malik Beasley was not part of Thursday’s arrests, and his lawyer reiterated that he has “no relationship whatsoever” to the federal investigation against Rozier and Billups, per ESPN’s Dan Wetzel.

The NBA cooperated with the federal government for the investigation, Joseph Nocella Jr., U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York, told Front Office Sports at the Thursday press conference announcing the arrests.

Onstage at the Front Office Sports Tuned In media summit just last month, Silver struck a different tone in his comments about how legal sports betting is affecting his league. He voiced his frustration with the current U.S. regulatory landscape on sports betting, where rules differ state by state. 

“We now face a state-by-state hodgepodge of regulations. And people may be surprised to hear this, but the leagues do not have a seat at the table,” Silver said. “I feel as if we’re operating with one hand tied behind our back because of the regulatory structure right now.”

Still, he had praise for the way that suspicious betting patterns can be tracked in a legalized environment with the help of partner sportsbooks. “All the issues now that have come to people’s attention in our league is because, in a positive way, the leagues, in partnership with legalized sports bettors, saw aberrational behavior in betting patterns, amazingly accurate geolocating of where those bets are being placed,” Silver said. “Investigators came in and said: that’s a problem.”

The NBA has official gaming partners (FanDuel, DraftKings) and authorized gaming operators (i.e. Bally, BetMGM), but it does not control all operators. It has been able to influence betting changes through its partners, particularly removing prop bets on two-way players following the case around Porter last year.

Silver told ESPN’s Pat McAfee on Tuesday that he believes additional changes still need to be implemented.

“I think, probably, there should be more regulation, frankly,” Silver said. “I wish there was federal legislation rather than state by state. I think you’ve got to monitor the amount of promotion, the amount of advertising around it.”

The NBA Players Association has also backed a call from the league to create further limitations around prop bets, in part because of the harassment players have received from fans.

As the NBA continues to navigate through the era of legalized sports betting, Silver’s battle cry against sports betting-related issues has been to hammer home the importance of the “integrity of the game.” It mirrors what he wrote in the penultimate paragraph of his 2014 op-ed.

“Let me be clear: Any new approach must ensure the integrity of the game. One of my most important responsibilities as commissioner of the N.B.A. is to protect the integrity of professional basketball and preserve public confidence in the league and our sport. I oppose any course of action that would compromise these objectives,” Silver wrote.

Amid the sports betting arrests and an ongoing investigation into salary cap circumvention against the Clippers, the league’s integrity is in a public dogfight.