Terry Rozier of the Miami Heat became the second active NBA player to be named in a gambling probe. And Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk sees a common theme in both cases.
Player prop bets.
Last season, Jontay Porter of the Toronto Raptors was banned after a scheme came to light when he would manipulate his betting the under on his individual player props to secure a win for people with inside information. That is also what is alleged to have happened in Rozier’s case in a game in March 2023. The NBA has also been hit with Chauncey Billups and Damon Jones being subject to charges relating to an illegal poker game that was allegedly rigged.
Florio has sounded the alarm on major sports betting scandals coming in the future. And in fact, he has a new novel on the subject where a gambling scandal hits a fictionalized professional football league. In commenting on the NBA investigation, he predicted that player props would be made illegal in the future and advocated for the ban.
Prediction: Individual player prop bets will be made illegal by many of the states that have legalized gambling. (As they should be.)
— ProFootballTalk (@ProFootballTalk) October 23, 2025
A ban on individual player props is not without precedence. Multiple states have removed individual player props from betting on college sports because of the belief that they would be particularly susceptible to manipulation. Could that ban be extended to pro sports?
It’s likely something that the sports books would fight against. Player props aren’t just a popular form of betting, they form the bedrock for same game parlays that have been the most lucrative form of betting for the major gambling sites. Removing player props would greatly decrease the options for consumers and undoubtedly impact their business.
But given those companies are now firmly in business relationships with the leagues themselves, could they bring enough pressure to force a change? That’s the question that will need to be answered by all sides of the industry and quickly in the wake of the NBA gambling scandal.
The current investigation is going to create a tidal wave of debate on the rapid legalization of sports betting and how quickly it has been embraced by the sports world. And the fallout has only just begun.