States with Legal Sports Betting Eye Proposition Bets

Seven years after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act, states continue to wrestle with how best to regulate sports betting, an industry that now generates more than $10 billion in revenue annually nationwide.

Legalized sports betting appears to have powered an increased interest in proposition, or prop, betting, in which bettors wager on an individual athlete’s performance, say how many passes Kansas City Chiefs Quarterback Patrick Mahomes will throw, or whether something specific will happen during a game, like a punt being returned for a touchdown.

More so than wagers on the outcome of a game, prop bets place a particular emphasis on the players, which can both put more pressure on them and give them greater opportunities for mischief.

Last year, National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) President Charlie Baker urged states with legalized sports betting to ban prop bets on college athletes, saying the wagers have led to student-athletes being harassed or threatened. Thirteen states (Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Tennessee and Virginia) ban all forms of prop bets on college athletes, while several other states restrict prop bets on college sports.

There are growing concerns, however, that some athletes may manipulate prop bets to enrich themselves or associates. For example, the National Basketball Association (NBA) last year banned Toronto Raptors Center Jontay Porter for life following a gambling probe that found he shared confidential information with sports bettors and bet on his own team to lose.

Porter admitted he pulled himself early from games so that others could win bets on his performance. For instance, before the Raptors’ Jan. 26, 2024 game against the Los Angeles Clippers, prop bets for Porter were set for 5.5 points, 4.5 rebounds and 1.5 assists, meaning bettors could wager whether he would record more or less of each stat.

There was an increased betting interest on the “under” for Porter props that night. He ended up playing for 4 minutes and 24 seconds, scoring zero points, 3 rebounds and 1 assist. A $29,382 parlay on the under on Porter’s rebounds and points for the game, allegedly placed by an associate, paid out $103,387.

Porter, who has pleaded guilty to wire fraud conspiracy, faces a maximum of 20 years in prison. He is scheduled to be sentenced in December.

Prop Bets on Radar in Many States

Legislation referring to proposition betting—wagering on an individual athlete’s performance or a specific event such as a punt being returned for a touchdown—has been introduced in at least 19 states this year and enacted in two. Only five of those states introduced bills that deal substantively with prop betting.

Ohio Governor Proposes Unusual Change

Into this complicated environment has stepped Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine (R), who has proposed banning all prop bets in the Buckeye State after two Cleveland Guardians baseball players were placed on leave as part of a Major League Baseball (MLB) investigation into sports gambling.

Cleveland relief pitchers Emmanual Clase and Luis Ortiz are on paid leave through the end of August following unusual betting activity around specific, individual pitches they threw that all ended up being outside of the strike zone.

“The evidence that prop betting is harming athletics in Ohio is reaching critical mass. First, there were threats on Ohio athletes, and now two high-profile Ohio professional athletes have been suspended by Major League Baseball as part of a ‘sports betting investigation,’” DeWine said in a late July statement. “The harm to athletes and the integrity of the game is clear, and the benefits are not worth the harm. The prop betting experiment in this country has failed badly. I call on the Casino Control Commission to correct this problem and remove all prop bets from the Ohio marketplace.”

The governor has called on six professional sports leagues--MLB, the NBA, the Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA), the National Football League (NFL), the National Hockey League (NHL) and Major League Soccer (MLS)—to support the ban.

DeWine has shown a lot of interest in Ohio’s sports gaming. After sports betting became legal in the state in January 2023, the governor pushed for doubling its sports betting tax from 10% to 20%. That was approved, but his subsequent call this year to double the tax again to 40% didn’t move forward. DeWine also backed the Ohio Casino Control Commission’s ban on college athletics prop bets in 2024.

DeWine’s proposed ban on all prop bets would be a first in the United States. Ohio Rep. Brian Stewart (R) has already vowed to oppose any such ban in the state, writing on X: “Ohio legalized sports betting with bipartisan support. It’s a popular activity that adults should be free to enjoy. Prop bets are a big part of that plus they make up a substantial % of Ohio’s tax revenue. They should not be banned & I’ll be working to make sure they aren’t.”

Critics have said that DeWine’s proposed ban won’t work as Ohio bettors could still place prop bets with black market (re: unregulated) bookies as well as with other similar markets, like so-called sweepstakes or social sportsbooks, fantasy pick ‘em games and prediction markets, which are all regulated differently than legal sportsbooks.

The proposal also may not be popular with the pro leagues. As Jill R. Dorson wrote for InGame, a website covering the regulated U.S. sports betting industry, “a ban on pro player props would ultimately hurt the bottom line for many major professional leagues and teams—particularly those that hold wagering licenses and have market-share agreements with wagering operators. In Arizona, Illinois, Ohio, and Washington, D.C., regulators require wagering platforms to partner with land-based casinos or professional sports teams to offer sports betting. And in some cases, revenue-sharing agreements are in place.”

Other Prop Bet Proposals Introduced This Year

No other state appears to be considering a total ban on prop bets. Indeed, while a search of the LexisNexis® State Net® database for current legislation turned up more than 50 bills in 22 states mentioning proposition bets, only a handful of those proposals appear to deal substantively with them.

Connecticut’s HB 5273 would have narrowly banned any prop bets involving college teams in the state as well as their coaches and players, but it failed.

Georgia’s HB 686, a fast moving bill that would prohibit sports betting franchisees from offering or accepting prop bets on collegiate sporting events.

New York’s SB 2616 by Sen. Joseph Addabbo Jr., chairman of the Senate Committee on Racing, Gaming and Wagering and a frequent author of gambling legislation in the Empire State, would authorize legal supports books to offer season-long proposition bets and futures bets, which are wagers on the outcome of something long term, such as whether a team will win its division. That bill is pending.

Oklahoma’s HB 1537, which would prohibit a “state regulatory entity from approving, or a sports wagering operator from accepting, a proposition bet on” amateur or intercollegiate sports.

Virginia’s HB 2498 and SB 1287, which would have prohibited prop bets on college supports. Both measures were left in committee in February.

Still, with headlines proliferating about sports gambling scandals—Detroit Pistons Guard Malik Beasley was recently revealed to be the subject of a federal gambling investigation involving prop wagers—the pressure may increase on state policymakers to take action.

In fact, you might stay it’d be a good bet that could happen.

—By SNCJ Correspondent BRIAN JOSEPH

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