Players cheating to win bets is ‘a slippery slope:’ Experts
- Tennis star: NBA had no choice but to ban Jontay Porter for life
- Pro bettor: Cheating could easily ‘spiral out of control’
- College players could be more susceptible than pros
ovp test
Male shot by female at Shreveport apartment
Class to create biodiverse backyard
Rules for outbursts at Caddo School Board Meeting
(NewsNation) — One was a player, the other a bettor. Both agree that sports leagues need to quickly find a way to combat the illegal influence of sports betting on their games.
“I believe this is just the start of ongoing and continuing problems,” former tennis star and ESPN commentator Patrick McEnroe told NewsNation’s “Dan Abrams Live” on Wednesday.
“This has become a very slippery slope,” said professional sports gambler Steve Maltepes. “They (pro leagues) gotta get this under control quickly, ‘cause it’s gonna spiral out of control.”
The two spoke hours after the NBA announced it has banned Toronto Raptors center Jontay Porter for life. A league investigation found that Porter disclosed confidential information to sports bettors, and bet on games himself.
The NBA says Porter even bet on his own team to lose.
“The NBA has absolutely no other choice” but to ban Porter, said McEnroe, whom he described as “a role player at best.”
“You’ve got someone who’s not one of the multi-millionaires that most of the NBA players are. A guy like that can be tempted a lot easier than the big-name players.”
The website spotrac says Porter earned about $2.4 million in three NBA seasons, which is well below the league average of $10 million.
“He saw an opportunity maybe to win a million bucks,” Maltepes said.
Both agree that the influence of sports betting could be much worse in college athletics. NCAA president Charlie Baker recently called prop betting, or betting on some detail in a game rather than the overall game outcome, “enormously problematic” in college sports.
