Some Chicago Bulls frustrated by the reality of sports gambling

In the six years since the United States Supreme Court struck down the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act, the NBA has welcomed this new addition to basketball culture with open arms. And if this year is anything to go by, the influence of sports betting on basketball will only grow in the seasons to come.

But last week served as a warning to sports leagues across the country — from stars like MLB’s Shohei Ohtani putting players on the bench like NBA’s Jontay Porterthe rise of legal gambling brings problems as well as profit.

For Chicago Bulls players, the proliferation of sports gambling has changed the dynamics of being a professional athlete, both on the Internet and on the court.

Forward DeMar DeRozan described the main development simply: “More and more fans are talking crazy to you because you’re ruining their speeches.”

DeRozan said he never had any interest in betting. So he was initially confused when he started seeing fans bring signs to the games listing the over/under for the night’s betting lines. In recent years, it’s become common to hear fans yelling from the stands – complaining about a missed parlay or demanding to miss a free throw to go under.

It was an adjustment for players across the league. Nikola Vučević said he felt a similar surprise when several fans sent him requests for money on Venmo after losing prop bets on games. (Vučević has since made his Venmo account private.)

“It’s inevitable,” Vučević said. “People like it. They’re doing it. You just have to understand that you’re going to bring in people who don’t really care about the sport itself or the integrity of it. They only care about the money, the bets. If this works for you, that’s great. But you have to be prepared to deal with the negativity that comes with it.

For the NBA, finding balance with betting goes beyond fans. That became abundantly clear this week following a report from ESPN that Porter is under investigation by the league for allegedly manipulating his performance for the Toronto Raptors to make side bets throughout throughout the season.

“Anytime you bring that into the game, there’s always going to be potential problems,” Bulls coach Billy Donovan said. “It simply is. I don’t know what the cost versus risk is. I’m sure the NBA has evaluated all of this. But I think when you factor that in, there’s obviously more appeal.

This is not a new problem. When Donovan played for Providence as a college athlete, the FBI sent agents to talk to his team about the realities of throwing games. Donovan believes this is a direct result of the point-splitting scandal at Boston College, in which men’s basketball players were paid by members of an organized crime syndicate to prevent their team from covering up the entire spread. throughout the 1978-79 NCAA season. With Sports gambling is now legal in many states on various online platforms, it is even easier for players to manipulate betting odds.

The NBA employs similar tactics by providing education and resources to athletes each year to help them avoid illegal gambling. These measures will likely be intensified following Porter’s investigation, which could have serious consequences for the Raptors.

But Donovan acknowledged the risk would persist as long as legal gambling remained a fixture of the league.