Pete Rose, the 1919 “Black Sox,” and Tim Donaghy are just some of the names that come to mind when discussing the biggest sports betting scandals in history.[i] While these incidents were massive, leading to lifetime bans from professional leagues and their Hall of Fames, they were few and far between. However, since May 14, 2018, and the landmark case of Murphy v. NCAA where the Supreme Court struck down the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (PASPA), sports betting has become a staple of American culture.[ii]

Prior to Murphy v. NCAA, few places allowed legal gambling on sporting events. Professional sports leagues despised gambling and distanced themselves as far as they could from it to protect the integrity of the games.[iii] Of course, “underground” sports gambling happened, but without the technology, the proper infrastructure, and government approval, underground sports books were very simple. However, with the legalization of sports betting, proper oversight and regulation has been slow to follow behind. Murphy v. NCAA was decided on anti-commandeering grounds, leaving the regulation of sports gambling to individual States.[iv]

Today there are dozens of mobile apps that provide sports gambling services right on one’s phone, enabling practically anyone to bet on anything from the NFL to Golf to Russian Table Tennis. With this advanced technology and the removal of the taboo surrounding sports gambling, wagers such as “prop bets” have skyrocketed in popularity. Prop bets are “a wager on an outcome other than the final score, like player stats, team milestones, or in-game events.”[v] The simplest example is when a sports book sets a “line” for how many points a player will score in a particular game, and the consumer places a bet on whether the player will score more or less than that amount.

While this seems harmless, there has been a noticeable increase in gambling scandals surrounding prop bets. This is not an issue with the most popular players given their notoriety, and the attention and scrutiny focused on their games by the public. The issue arises with lesser-known players. For example, Toronto Raptors forward Jontay Porter was banned from the NBA for life on April 17, 2024, after he was found placing bets on his own games.[vi] Porter was participating in a scheme where he would intentionally go “under the line” on his prop bets. One of these “under bets” would have led to a $1.1 million dollar payout.[vii] The NBA and Colorado Division of Gaming began investigating Porter after large amounts of bets were placed on him given that he was a relatively unknown bench player.[viii]

This problem is only growing and does not involve just single players anymore. On January 15, 2026, it was announced that 26 people were charged in connection to a bribery and point-shaving scheme in National Collegiate Athletic Association (“NCAA”) Division 1 men’s basketball and the Chinese Basketball Association (“CBA”).[ix] Point-shaving is “an attempt (as by a member of the team favored to win) to influence the final score of a game so that the predicted winner wins by less than the point spread.”[x] Of the 26 people charged, 20 of them played games in the NCAA between the 2023 to 2025 seasons.[xi]

This is not going away anytime soon given that the sports betting industry made $13.71 billion in revenue in 2024 and all evidence points to those numbers increasing. [xii]  With the amount of money at stake, professional sports leagues have begun to partner with sports books.[xiii] Even individual professional sports teams have started partnering with sports books; to the point where a sportsbook has been placed inside a stadium.[xiv]

Notwithstanding this uncertainty and drama, the next wave of “gambling” has already arrived in the form of prediction markets. Predication markets, such as Kalshi and Polymarket, allow consumers to place “wagers” on the outcome or occurrence of certain events.[xv] These markets have a much wider range of “wagers” then traditional sports books, allowing users to bet on events such as Trump’s invasion of Venezuela and the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.[xvi] In the context of sports exclusively, these predication markets saw more than $1 billion traded on their platforms on Super Bowl Sunday alone.[xvii]

The legalization of sports gambling and rise of prediction markets isn’t the pinnacle issue here; it’s the lack of regulation. Murphy v. NCAA did not take away Congress’s power in terms of regulating sports gambling, it simply enforced the long-standing idea of anti-commandeering. Even with the retained power, Congress has done little to create any sort of structure for sports gambling or its secondary effects. Given that sports gambling is a multi-billion-dollar industry and its effects cross state lines, Congress’s commerce power is clearly enabled for regulation.[xviii]

This lack of regulation has led to a slew of consequences including game manipulation, questions of integrity, and conflicts of interest between professional leagues and their sportsbook partners. Predication markets have further aggravated these issues by blurring the lines between gambling and simple commodities trading. If sports betting is to remain a fixture of American sports, there needs to be some sort of proactive federal oversight to prevent issues rather than waiting until they arrive to address them.

[i] See Murphy v. National Collegiate Athletic Assn., 584 U.S. 453, 460 n.17 (2018) (discussing the 1919 White Sox betting scandal); see also Justin Klawans, The Biggest Sports Betting Scandals in History, The Week US (Nov. 3, 2025), https://theweek.com/sports/biggest-sports-betting-scandals-history [https://perma.cc/HV66-XCNP]; see also Caryn E. Neumann, NBA Referee Tim Donaghy s Sentenced to Prison for Betting on Games, EBSCO (2022), https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/law/nba-referee-tim-donaghy-sentenced-prison-betting-games [https://perma.cc/FRY4-Q722].

[ii] See Murphy, 584 U.S. at 486; see also Suspensions, Arrests and Lifetime Bans:  Timeline of Sports Betting Scandals Since the Repeal of PSASPA, ESPN (Oct. 23, 2025), https://www.espn.com/espn/betting/story/_/id/39908218/a-line-sports-gambling-scandals-2018 [https://perma.cc/C42W-EWRA].

[iii] See How the World of Sports Learned to Completely Accept the Betting Industry, Sports Hist. Network (Dec. 9, 2025), https://sportshistorynetwork.com/gambling/world-of-sports-learned-to-accept-betting-industry/ [https://perma.cc/S9NV-JWKQ] (“Professional sports leagues once treated gambling like a contagious disease. Team owners banned players for life over accusations of fixed games. Commissioners gave speeches about protecting the integrity of competition. Stadiums refused money from casinos.”).

[iv] See Murphy v. National Collegiate Athletic Assn., 584 U.S. at 486.

[v] What is Prop Betting? How Prop Bets Work, Types & Examples, Fox Sports, https://www.foxsports.com/stories/betting/prop-betting [https://perma.cc/B3EK-ZK84] (Dec. 3, 2025, at 7:09 PM ET).

[vi] See Jontay Porter Banned from NBA for Violating League’s Gaming Rules, NBA (Apr. 17, 2024, at 12:50 PM), https://www.nba.com/news/jontay-porter-banned-from-nba [https://perma.cc/3JAJ-JTJN].

[vii] See id.

[viii] See David Pudum, NBA Bans Raptors’ Jontay Porter for Gambling Violations, ESPN (Apr. 17, 2024, at 12:26 PM ET), https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/39962406/nba-bans-raptors-jontay-porter-gambling-violations [https://perma.cc/A4J2-GYBQ].

[ix] See 26 People Charged in Alleged Bribery and Point-Shaving Scheme to Fix NCAA, CBA Men’s Basketball Games, Dept. of J. (Jan. 15, 2026), https://www.justice.gov/usao-edpa/pr/26-people-charged-alleged-bribery-and-point-shaving-scheme-fix-ncaa-cba-mens [https://perma.cc/CG3X-ZMD6].

[x] See Point-Shaving, Merriam Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/point-shaving [https://perma.cc/3XEM-2JK5] (last visited Apr. 20, 2026).

[xi] See David Purdum, Many College Players Among Dozens Charged in Point-Shaving Plot, ESPN (Jan. 15, 2025, at 10:00 PM ET), https://www.espn.com/mens-college-basketball/story/_/id/47619154/many-college-players-20-charged-point-shaving-scheme [https://perma.cc/Y5HX-3W9Y].

[xii] See Doug Greenber, U.S. Sports Betting Industry Posts Record $13.7B revenue for ’24, ESPN (Feb. 19, 2025, at 2:16PM ET), https://www.espn.com/espn/betting/story/_/id/43922129/us-sports-betting-industry-posts-record-137b-revenue-24 [https://perma.cc/9YDP-CMEW].

[xiii] See Sports Hist. Network, supra note iii (“The NFL moved first among major leagues, announcing partnerships with Caesars Entertainment, DraftKings, and FanDuel as Official Sports Betting Partners . . . The NBA followed a similar path. MGM became the first casino-based sportsbook to form a partnership with the league through a three-year, $25 million deal.”).

[xiv] See id (“The Chicago Cubs signed a $100 million agreement with DraftKings that includes building a sportsbook at Wrigley Field.”).

[xv] See Bruce Blythe, Prediction markets: The Intersection of Forecasting and Investing, Britannica Money (Feb. 13, 2026, at 10:40 AM ET), https://www.britannica.com/money/prediction-markets [https://perma.cc/4FLX-AQHT] (“At their core, these platforms allow participants to buy and sell contracts based on the outcomes of future events, including elections, corporate earnings, sports championships, and economic indicators.”).

[xvi] See Jaqob Sharifi, Betting on the Future: A Legal Evaluation of Prediction Markets, Vanderbilt Univ. L. Sch. (Jan, 21, 2026, at 12:50 PM), https://law.vanderbilt.edu/betting-on-the-future-a-legal-evaluation-of-prediction-markets/ [https://perma.cc/64YS-V9AA].

[xvii] See Anna Betts, Surging Prediction Markets Face Legal Backlash in U.S.: ‘Lines have been Blurred’, Guardian (Feb. 17, 2026, at 7:00 ET), https://www.theguardian.com/business/2026/feb/17/us-prediction-markets-lawsuits-kalshi-polymarket [https://perma.cc/QRK6-RCGB].

[xviii] See U.S. Const. art. I, sec. 8, cl. 3.