Copyright The Boston Globe
People can place prop bets on the number of strikeouts a pitcher will record, who will score the most points in one quarter of basketball or a quarterback’s total passing yards in a football game. A subset of prop bets called “microbets” allow for breakneck gambling – wagers on pitch speeds, who will commit the next foul, or whether the next snap will be a run or a pass. Prop bets are at the center of several recent scandals that have shaken the sports world, raising questions about whether gambling is making it impossible to have faith in the integrity of competition. At the same time, a growing body of research is bringing public health questions about such prop bets to the fore at a time when lawmakers are considering limiting or banning them. Two MLB pitchers were indicted last week on federal charges they took bribes to rig pitches for bettors. Cleveland Guardians starter Luis Ortiz, whom agents arrested Sunday at Logan Airport, is accused of alerting bettors to his pitches in advance and intentionally throwing balls at agreed-upon times to ensure successful prop bets. The indictment alleges another Guardians pitcher, Emmanuel Clase, communicated with bettors during games to tell them when he’d be throwing a ball. The bettors won prop bets — some worth tens of thousands of dollars — based both on whether Clase would throw a ball or a strike, and whether the pitch would reach a certain speed. Attorneys for both players said they are innocent. The fallout has been swift. On Monday, MLB announced that top sportsbooks — including FanDuel and Boston-based DraftKings, the two largest in the country — have agreed to a nationwide $200 betting limit for wagers on individual pitches, and such bets are not to be included in parlays. In the NBA, Miami Heat player Terry Rozier, a former Boston Celtic, was indicted in October on federal charges after prosecutors said he conspired with a friend to ensure people betting on him to underperform would win. Rozier allegedly told a friend he was going to take himself out of a particular game early with a fake injury. The friend allegedly sold that information to bettors, allowing them to win tens of thousands of dollars from prop bets predicting Rozier’s underperformance. Rozier has pleaded not guilty. Critics of sports gambling, including public health advocates pushing for reform, call prop betting an especially dangerous, highly addictive product that can give gambling addicts continuous dopamine hits, night and day. Some gamblers and the sports betting companies consider these wagers fun ways to engage with sports, adding excitement to moments of the game that might otherwise pass unnoticed. And sportsbooks’ revenue — the public’s losses — has soared from prop bets. A leading industry group for sportsbooks says their companies’ proactive approach to working with law enforcement is what allows authorities to uncover these types of schemes. In the recent NBA and MLB cases, the investigations began after sportsbooks detected unusual wagering patterns that caused big payouts to bettors. “When placed through legal, regulated sportsbooks, all bets including prop bets are closely monitored for suspicious activity, and any concerns are reported to regulators, sports leagues, and sports integrity bodies,” said Conor Yunits, spokesman for the Sports Betting Alliance. Prop bets are popular with gamblers — and they’re also big moneymakers for the house. In documents DraftKings filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission this year, the company touted a 30 percent revenue increase that the company partly attributed to more people betting on “parlays” — wagers bundled into one bet that will only pay out if each individual wager is won. DraftKings and others often promote “single-game” parlays that bundle several prop bets together. Like trifectas at the racetrack, such bets often have a high payout because the likelihood of winning across the board is so small. While the sports betting companies insist that legalized sports betting allows the industry to root out cases where players or coaches are harming the integrity of the game, public health advocates and some public officials see the recent controversies as more fallout from an industry that needs more regulation. “The twin dangers here are addiction and corruption. Just see in criminal indictments the ugly face of corruption,” said U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal, Democrat from Connecticut, during a press conference in Washington, D.C., on Thursday. “But it’s only the tip of the iceberg,” Blumenthal said. “What we’ve seen in indictments is only a piece of the evil corruption that is infecting this industry and needs to be rooted out and stopped.” Blumenthal is sponsoring federal legislation that would create sweeping new restrictions on sports betting, including a ban on prop bets on college and amateur athletes. Since September, more than half a dozen college basketball players from five schools have been banned after the NCAA found they had either thrown games or shared insider information with bettors. Former Massachusetts governor Charlie Baker, now president of the NCAA, has called for a ban on prop bets in college sports. In Massachusetts, where prop bets on college athletes are already prohibited, a bill that would ban all prop bets is scheduled for a crucial committee hearing Thursday on Beacon Hill. A wide range of testimony, from opponents to industry advocates, is expected. Senator John Keenan, the Quincy Democrat sponsoring the “Bettor Health Act,” has said sports betting has accelerated gambling addiction in Massachusetts. Yunits, of the Sports Betting Alliance, said blanket prop bet bans won’t stop people from placing them. It will just affect where they’re placed. “These bets are popular, and fans can easily turn to illegal and unregulated platforms to do so — unscrupulous operators who lack oversight, offer no consumer protections, and refuse to cooperate with integrity investigations,” Yunits said. While the indictments have rekindled debate on prop bets among lawmakers, experts and gambling operators, those who have suffered from gambling addiction are working to be heard. Blumenthal’s comments came at the launch of a national advocacy group called Family and Friends of Gamblers, a group that includes people whose loved ones have struggled with gambling addiction on sports betting platforms. The group has been organized with the help of Northeastern University’s Public Health Advocacy Institute, and they favor more regulation. Margot and Greg Rothman, members of the group who live in Philadelphia, have a 23-year-old son who started betting on sports when he was 18. He’s working on recovery after posting about $100,000 in losses, fueled by cash advances from credit cards while he was a college student. “It wasn’t like he was trying to win money to do something with that money,” said Greg Rothman. “He needed money to be able to do what he wanted to do, which was gamble.” In their efforts to connect with their son when he was in the throes of addiction, the Rothmans tried to talk to him about the sports he was betting on. He’d suddenly become very interested in tennis. But it wasn’t typical sports fandom. He was making a constant stream of prop bets on every aspect of a match. “He wouldn’t even know the players. He wouldn’t even follow the matches,” Margot Rothman said. “He was just placing these bets on things he wasn’t even paying attention to.”
