NBA’s gambling push creates pushback, with a harrowing tale
MIAMI — The lines have been set and the lines have been drawn.
That perhaps never was more evident than before the Miami Heat’s game on Wednesday night at Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse.
In the home-team interview room, Cleveland Cavaliers coach J.B. Bickerstaff was recalling a harrowing incident last season when a gambler got his phone number and began making threatening calls.
Down the hall, moments later in the visitor’s interview room, Heat coach Erik Spoelstra was relating a story of a gambler so intent on a desired outcome last season that the team had to have the spectator ejected.
Both conversations came in an arena that houses a Caesars-operated sportsbook.
For years, through partnerships and sponsorships, this has been the direction steered by NBA Commissioner Adam Silver, who in an op-ed piece a decade ago in the New York Times wrote, “Sports betting should be brought out of the underground and into the sunlight.”
The glare arguably never has been brighter, with the NBA this past week announcing that live betting would be coming to NBA League Pass — watch while wagering.
That was among the reasons the topic was broached ahead of the Heat’s victory over the Cavaliers.
It led to answers both unexpected and concerning.
“I do think it’s somewhat contradictory,” Spoelstra said of the NBA aggressively and emphatically moving into the gambling space. “I think it treads on a weird line, for sure.”
That led to Spoelstra revealing the disquieting moment last season.
“We had an incident behind our bench last year with Vic Oladipo,” Spoelstra said. “Somebody was screaming. Security had to take him away. The game was already over, and evidently, he didn’t shoot an open three at the end of the game. The game was already decided, and this fan was totally beside himself, and he was a gambler. He had money on whatever the score was.”
As with many teams, the Heat feature gambling signage on their court at Kaseya Center.
Then there was Bickerstaff’s more profound perspective.
“They got my telephone number and were sending me crazy messages about where I live and my kids and all that stuff,” Bickerstaff said, with the gambler later identified but no charges filed. “It is a dangerous game and a fine line that we’re walking for sure.”
While the NBA’s newest feature with League Pass will be limited to point spreads, over-unders and moneyline odds at legal outlets in various jurisdictions, the reality is that a variety of apps offer real-time lines and constantly updated player propositions.
In other words, action all the time, even in blowouts, even in games involving teams that have no incentive to win.
“It brings added pressure,” Bicklerstaff said. “It brings a distraction to the game that can be difficult for players, coaches, referees, everybody that’s involved in it. And I think that we really have to be careful with how close we let it get to the game and the security of the people who are involved in it.”
Even something rudimentary as the overall betting line, as Spoelstra noted with the Oladipo incident, can become intrusive, particularly where such bets are legal, where there is no need to remain surreptitious about having money on the line.
“The amount of times,” Bickerstaff said, “where I’m standing up there and we may have a 10-point lead and the spread is 11 and people are yelling at me to leave the guys in so that we can cover the spread, it’s ridiculous.”
And yet it also is what Silver, the NBA and every other sports league are looking for — action with enough juice to juice interest even when the outcome would otherwise stand irrelevant.
In every NBA locker room there is signage of hard-and-fast rules against gambling involvement by any member of a team. Such signage states that team representatives are prohibited from wagering on any NBA, WNBA, G League, NBA 2K League or Basketball Africa League game, tipping (specifically, nonpublic, proprietary or other sensitive NBA or team information, such as a player’s injury status or his likelihood of playing in a game), as well, of course, as directly altering the outcome.
From there, players sit on benches with gambling advertisement at their feet.
This past week, that had Indiana Pacers guard Tyrese Haliburton noting: “To half the world, I’m just helping them make money on DraftKings or whatever ... I’m the prop.”
A former Heat player who now is a coach said the slope is beyond slippery, the betting lines so public that it is difficult not to be aware that a late basket in an already-decided game could result in a payoff for the home fans.
“You still have to play the game without thinking about gambling,” the coach said, with anonymity granted because of the sensitivity of the subject. “I think you have to hold the ball. We do that for sportsmanship in the first place. I think you still have to be consistent with that. You can’t go out of your way to make people money and things like that. I think that’s where it becomes a little sketchy.”
Another former Heat player with European ties said it is an evolution in the NBA that already has taken hold elsewhere.
“It is an interesting topic,” he said. “And if I’m honest, it’s hard to give an answer. Back in Europe, in those minor leagues, players bet on themselves, their own teams.”
This is where the NBA stands. No turning back.
“It changes the atmosphere,” a former Heat player said. “But it can’t change the way you do things.”
But it can change and has changed the spectator/participant dynamic.
“There’s just a lot of unintended consequences with that, from a security standpoint,” Spoelstra said, “that I’m not sure everybody totally understood when it became allowed.”