One in five American adults gambled on sports in some way over the past year. As gambling becomes increasingly popular, the separation between betting on sports and the integrity of the sports themselves gets intertwined in concerning ways. In the past six months, professional athletes have been arrested for being part of gambling schemes.

The National Basketball Association found itself under scrutiny following a betting scandal that revolved around Miami Heat Guard Terry Rozier. According to ESPN, over the course of a year from March 2023 to March 2024, Rozier told people in his gambling circle to bet the under on the Heat, which he would then follow up with either throwing the game or faking an injury to fulfill the bettors’ pick.

Meanwhile in Major League Baseball, the news broke that Cleveland Guardian pitchers Emmanuel Clase and Luis Ortiz were caught rigging MLB bets by throwing specific pitches and tipping them off to people of close proximity to bet on. The twocould potentially face 65 years of jail time.

These recent cases have raised questions of whether people can trust the integrity of the sports they watch and bet on. Years ago, the four core major sports leagues did not really have any major affiliation with the potentially addictive hobby of gambling, and not a lot of people had questioned its issues and the damage it could cause professional leagues. Things changed in 2018 when the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act of 1992 (PASPA) was lifted, allowing states outside of Nevada to conduct sportsbook agreements with professional leagues. Since then, sportsbooks have grown much bigger, captivating all types of demographics. According to data recorded by the Siena University Research Institute, 22 percent of Americans have a sportsbook account, with an astounding 48 percent of men ages 18-49 utilizing apps like Draftkings and Fanduel.

Many americans, even the ones who gamble, are increasingly uneasy about betting on sports. According to an October 2025 report by Pew Research, an estimate of 43 percent of U.S adults claim that gambling is a bad thing, while only a slim 7 percent claim that it’s good. Many also are concerned that the average of sports gambling is dropping as students in college, and even high school, gamble on sports.

The recent increase in gambling has derailed sports, and people, in a wide variety of aspects. Gambling has gotten so addictive that even players are attempting to capitalize off of it, and it’s done some serious damage to sports integrity as a whole. Despite the recent incidents that happened in the MLB and the NBA, it appears that sportsbooks, along with betting as a whole, are not plnning on slowing down any time soon.