The sports governing bodies have spent the past year working to ensure that fans can place responsible wagers. That includes beefing up in-house technology, deploying security personnel and partnering with integrity firms to identify violations. The NBA, for instance, recently expanded its partnerships making DraftKings and FanDuel Group co-official sports betting partners of the league. The new deals give the two companies expansive rights to integrate NBA data and other assets throughout their sports betting and daily fantasy offerings.
As more states legalize sports betting, the pressure is growing to make sure athletes aren’t using inside information to take advantage of a system that’s supposed to level the playing field. For example, any time a pro athlete logs into a betting app, their location is immediately available on a dashboard for integrity analysts to see. In fact, when an NFL player logs into a sports book, the company will know they’re within a 3-foot radius of their team facility. If the analyst sees that the player is in the building, they can alert the team to look for suspicious activity, such as point-shaving or game-fixing.
The NBA has also worked to prevent its players from taking advantage of the new betting landscape. It’s a massive shift for players, who have been trained to avoid talking about money, and now face the prospect of losing their paychecks. In addition, the association has started to distribute e-learning modules on gambling harms and how to spot problem betting habits among its athletes.