Prop bet:
One of the most popular forms of sports betting is prop betting, which involves wagering on a specific outcome usually not tied to the overall game result. When you bet on a point spread, total or money line, you are wagering on a game outcome[,] while a prop bet is a more targeted wager looking at one area, usually a particular statistical category. The lines for prop bets are derived from oddsmakers in a similar way to game lines. [CBS Sports]
Noted in “I’m a huge sports fan. Gambling, especially prop bets, is ruining the fun.” Max Boot, WaPo:
Last month, the FBI arrested Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier, Portland Trail Blazers coach (and Hall of Fame player) Chauncey Billups, and former NBA player Damon Jones, among many others, for alleged involvement in illegal betting schemes. While Billups was accused of taking part in rigged, Mafia-run poker games, Rozier and Jones were indicted for allegedly providing gamblers with insider information about themselves and their teams. On Nov. 9, federal prosecutors unsealed an indictment of Cleveland Guardians pitchers Emmanuel Clase and Luis Ortiz for allegedly rigging pitches to provide lucrative paydays for gamblers making specialized “prop bets” that don’t turn on the outcome of games. (The accused are pleading not guilty.)
For those of us with the unfortunate habit of generalizing such situations, I’m thinking of this as a feedback loop. Which kind? Both, positive (or amplifying) and negative (or dampening) loops. The former result in bigger and bigger standard variations, if it helps to think about it that way, while the latter smooths out oscillations. This is good for, say, machinery.
But for sports betting? The foundation of sports, and ideally sports betting, is honest competition between one or more persons; destroying that foundation will ruin the sports betting as bettors become aware of the dishonesty. It may even destroy the sport itself, since spectators assume honest competition, and once it becomes apparent that it’s not honest because of bettors trying to guarantee large bets, or even simply trying to protect a reputation, well, away goes the sport as the fans, realizing their assumption of honest competition was wrong, walk away.
I have little patience with sports betting boosters. Collect bettors, bookies, competitors, and, in rare circumstance, even common fans who are not bettors. together in a room. This group is at both moral and existential risk.
Boot’s article is good. Give it a read.
