NBA players always hear from fans, whether at home or on the road. It comes with the job.
But this season, it’s getting dark.
The recent surge in legalized gambling in every pro league, and throughout college athletics, has affected American sports in ways that were unimaginable just a few years ago. But along with the potential good that comes with hundreds of millions of dollars in new revenue to the NBA and other leagues, comes something new and terrifying: verbal abuse directed at players and coaches based solely on the bets of fans.
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Fans can now bet in real-time on their smartphones, on all aspects of the game, including minutiae such as how many rebounds a player can grab in the first half, and how many points will be scored by a team in the fourth quarter. And if their bets don’t deliver, they take it out on the players.
“It’s getting outrageous,” LA Clippers forward PJ Tucker said recently. “It’s crazy. Even in the arenas, fans could be heard shouting at the men about their bets. This is not true. This is a problem. I think this is something that should be addressed.”
Teams have yet to make drastic changes to their security details, and the NBA has not recommended increased security near the court. But at least one team has added an extra security guard to its bench this season, in response to increased gambling-related fights. Another team has beefed up its cybersecurity staff to detect particularly vile vitriol sent by fans to its players online.
“Everywhere,” said Ochai Agbaji, a guard for the Toronto Raptors. “It’s the wild, wild west now.”
For decades, aside from one-off events like the Super Bowl and March Madness office pools, gambling was the third rail of sports. College basketball has been rocked by numerous shaving scandals. Professional leagues are trying to distance themselves from betting, even refusing to play in Las Vegas, where it is legal and popular. The Supreme Court then opened the door to legalize sports betting in 2018and there was a sea change.
Fans flocked to the nascent market, and pro leagues spun off quickly. If fans are opening their now-virtual wallets to spend money at games, leagues want a piece of the action.
Teams now have partnerships with casinos and build their arenas next to them. Broadcasters, long allergic to any reference to betting, now routinely mention betting information during broadcasts. The NBA recently announced that it will allow fans watching games on its streaming app to track betting odds and click to bet with the league’s betting partners, FanDuel and DraftKings.
(The athletec has a partnership with BetMGM.)
But an unintended consequence of this new relationship is coming out of the mouths of increasingly angry fans.
“You see people on Twitter, you know, fans going back and forth with players on Twitter about how you lost their money,” Boston Celtics forward Jayson Tatum said. “I guess it’s pretty funny. I do not know. I guess I feel bad when I’m not hitting people’s parlays. I don’t want them to lose money. But, you know, I’m just going to go out there and try to play.”
Cleveland Cavaliers coach JB Bickerstaff said last month that a gambler accessed Bickerstaff’s cell phone number and left him threatening text and voice messages, pretending to know where Bickerstaff lived and his family.
“It’s a dangerous game and a fine line we’re walking for sure,” Bickerstaff said.
Toronto Raptors forward Jordan Nwora said comments about betting from fans were “all the time, non-stop.”
“You get messages,” Nwora said. “You hear it on the sideline. You see guys talk about it all the time.
“It comes with being in the NBA. People bet on silly things every day. So I mean, it’s part of being in the NBA, it’s what comes with it. I got. People don’t complain when you play well. I don’t get messages from people saying, ‘Thank you for helping me.’ ”
A league spokesman said incidents of fan comments to players and team staff about gambling are no more prevalent than other fan misconduct at this point, but it’s something that continues. monitored by the league.
At the root of much of the anger is what’s known as prop betting, which used to be a strange corner of the underground betting universe that fans quickly took over. Prop bets are bets on parts of a game that may have no bearing on the outcome. How long does it take to sing the national anthem? How many turnovers will a player have in the first half? How many total rebounds will there be?
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Prop bets have been the subject of two recent incidents that have raised questions about whether basketball players are under the power of gamblers. A watchdog found irregular betting patterns in prop bets at some Temple University men’s basketball games this season. The NBA told ESPN last week that it is investigating Raptors forward Jontay Porter after irregularities were flagged in prop bets involving his performances in two games.
NBA players have noticed the change in fans’ interests.
“Halfway around the world, I’m just helping them make money on DraftKings or whatever,” Tyrese Haliburton, an All-Star guard for the Indiana Pacers, said last month.
“I’m a prop,” he added. “You know what I mean? That’s mostly what my social media consists of.”
Haliburton explained his comments in a recent interview with The Athletic. He said the verbal abuse at games is worse than when he entered the league four years ago.
“Bettors have this thing called a ‘banned’ list, and that’s when you don’t meet their bet,” Haliburton said. “So they’re like, ‘You’re on my banned list. I’m not going to continue betting on you.’ And I think that’s literally all my mentions in the last six weeks,” he said, referring to social media.
I asked too #Pacers star Tyrese Haliburton specifically about talking to a sports psychologist, and he noted in his response how sports betting consumed much of his social media.
“Halfway around the world, I’m just helping them make money on DraftKings or whatever. I’m a prop.” pic.twitter.com/6f2a0vEuiK
— James Boyd (@RomeovilleKid) March 20, 2024
Orlando Magic guard Cole Anthony also mentioned the banned list in noting the increased attention and pressure created by parlay betting, when multiple bets are combined into one bet.
“There were a few where I was like, ‘This hurts,'” Anthony said. “It’s not offensive, but it’s fun, in a way, to see this stuff and see how serious a lot of people are.”
The NBA is especially vulnerable to this new fan dynamic. Its players aren’t hidden behind pads and helmets, and they play close to fans, some of whom talk to coaches and players during games.
Team security does not deal with abusive fans — that falls to arena security. Behavior that is considered “verbal abuse, or being disruptive,” including talking about gambling if it’s particularly rude, can lead to ejections. Usually, fans are given a verbal warning by arena security that they are violating the NBA Fan Code of Conduct, which was promoted in the games. A fan who does not stop the disruptive behavior may be given a warning card — a written warning that further inappropriate behavior will lead to ejection. A third incident will result in the fan being ejected — although fans can be ejected if they are particularly rude to players or staff just once.
The league monitors social media activity through its Global Security Operations Center, which has a staff of eight to 10 people. The NBA also shares intel with other sports leagues. Some players, coaches and referees tend to attract more attention on social platforms than others. League security meets with teams twice a season to remind them about gambling protocols.
Bickerstaff, the Cavaliers coach, said he notified team security about the fan threatening him. Security tracked down the person who left the messages and texts, but Bickerstaff and the team declined to pursue a legal case.
Tatum said the discourse has “definitely changed” from his first few seasons in the league.
“I think when you hit people’s parlays and you do something good for them, they tell me,” he said. “But they also talk about s–t. It was like I was on the court and I didn’t get a 29.5 or whatever I was supposed to do.”
— Sam Amick, Eric Koreen, Josh Robbins, James Boyd, Jared Weiss and Jason Lloyd contributed reporting.
(Tyrese Haliburton photo: Ron Hoskins / NBAE via Getty Images)
