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Tom Mayenknecht: Sports betting scandals cast cloud over future of prop wagering.
Published Nov 14, 2025 • 3 minute read
Grey Cup
Saskatchewan Roughriders quarterback Trevor Harris takes a break during Grey Cup practice in Winnipeg on Nov. 13. Photo by John Woods /THE CANADIAN PRESS
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Bulls of the week
The CFL is basking in the glow of its 112th Grey Cup Festival this week, anticipating a TV-friendly matchup between the Saskatchewan Roughriders and the Montreal Alouettes on Sunday.
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The host city of Winnipeg sets the tone as one of Canada’s most engaged hubs for three-down football.
The Saskatchewan-Montreal showdowns of 2009 and 2010 were the two most-watched in the TSN era, driving north of six million viewers to the iconic Canadian event.
In 2025, north of four million would define success for the CFL and it has a good chance to reach that on the strength of a competitive game at newly renamed Princess Auto Stadium (formerly Investors Group Field).
Meanwhile, it’s been another notable week in the business of women’s pro sports, with Chicago being awarded the 2026 WNBA All-Star Game; multiple media events pumping up the Vancouver Goldeneyes and the Seattle Torrent, the two new expansion franchises that begin play Nov. 21 in the Professional Women’s Hockey League; and the confirmation of a Toronto AFC-Vancouver Rise matchup in the inaugural championship game of the Northern Super League this weekend.
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Yet the biggest storyline of all in women’s sports came in the National Women’s Soccer League, where Atlanta will become the 17th franchise in the U.S.-based league. The expansion fee of US$165 million is by far a new record and shows how far women’s pro sports have come, particularly in the past five years.
There’s still plenty of work to be done — as the WNBA is finding out as it tries to negotiate a new collective bargaining agreement on or before Nov. 30.
Yet there’s no question that the women’s sport market has been completely transformed on the strength of significant investment, including by highly respected and experienced sport leaders such as Mark Walter, managing partner of the ownership umbrella that governs the back-to-back World Series-champion Los Angeles Dodgers and now the L.A. Lakers of the NBA.
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Bears of the week
It’s been a tough month for the sport betting industry, especially in the NBA and Major League Baseball. Those two Big Five men’s sports have been hit the hardest by headlines describing the alleged cheating centred largely on props betting.
The NBA was the first to face what is a high-stakes crisis raising questions about the integrity of the game, with a bizarre poker and props betting scandal engulfing more than 50 coaches and players, including Portland Trail Blazers head coach Chauncey Billups, Terry Rozier of the Miami Heat and former NBA player Damon Jones, a well-travelled journeyman.
Cleveland Guardians pitchers Emmanuel Clase and Luis Ortiz joined the fray this week as the subject of new FBI indictments alleging rigged pitches in the MLB; again centred on props betting.
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In both scenarios, the underlying question has become what would drive such well-paid athletes and coaches to jeopardize their million-dollar-plus cash flows for relatively earnest payments alleged to be as small as US$12,000?
More importantly, what if anything can be done to restore faith in the sports betting infrastructure, one that generates billions of dollars of revenue every month for the leagues and their sports books?
The NBA is deep into its own investigation into the poker and props scandal, while the MLB responded quickly this week in capping prop bets at US$200.
The NFL issued a leaguewide memorandum as well, but in its case seemed to target categories of wagers that are either insignificant or entirely absent from the business of most American sports books.
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Make no mistake, this is an existential issue for all pro sports, not just for the big men’s and women’s leagues, but also others across the continent. The short, mid- and long-term impact of these alleged crimes on the sports betting industry is still unclear, except to say it’s the biggest crisis it has faced since the legalization of single-event wagering in the U.S. in May 2018 (now approaching 40 states) and Canada in August 2021.
Tom Mayenknecht is host of The Sport Market on Sportsnet 650 on Saturdays from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. The Vancouver-based sport business commentator and principal in Emblematica Brand Builders provides a behind-the-scenes look at the sport business stories that matter most to fans. Follow Mayenknecht at x.com/TheSportMarket.
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