Five US Leagues Ask 35 States to Ban Bettors Who Threaten Athletes for Life

The NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL and MLS and their players' unions have sent a joint memo to state gaming regulators asking for mandatory lifetime exclusions, a shared list and a single reporting channel. Five states already do something like it. The memo does not reach the bettors on prediction markets.

• The five largest US professional leagues and their players' associations sent a memo dated 15 September to gaming regulators in 35 states and the District of Columbia, according to reports by iGB and ESPN
• It asks states to mandate lifetime bans from licensed sportsbooks for anyone who has "abusively harassed or issued threats of violence" against professional or amateur athletes, coaches, officials, team personnel or their families
• The leagues also want a standardised, cross-operator reporting platform to "securely transmit verified evidence of threats" to regulators and law enforcement, and an exclusion list shared among states
• "Threatening the safety of an athlete or their family members over a sports bet crosses a bright ethical and criminal line, and it is entirely unacceptable," the memo says
• Louisiana, Massachusetts, Ohio, West Virginia and Wyoming already have similar policies; the NCAA is not a signatory, though the memo covers amateur athletes

The Leagues Move Together for the First Time on Harassment

The National Football League, National Basketball Association, Major League Baseball, National Hockey League and Major League Soccer, together with their respective players' unions, sent a letter on Tuesday to gambling regulators in 35 states and the District of Columbia proposing a lifetime ban from legal sportsbooks for individuals who harass or threaten athletes, according to ESPN's report of the memo. iGB, which also reported the document, describes it as the first collaboration of its kind between the leagues.

The memo's central request is for mandatory lifetime bans on individuals deemed to have "abusively harassed or issued threats of violence" against any professional athlete, and it extends the same ask to amateur athletes, coaches, officials and team personnel, and their families. Anyone found to have violated the policy would be placed on a sportsbook exclusion list shared among states. The leagues also want a streamlined reporting mechanism, described by iGB as a standardised, cross-operator platform allowing players, unions and leagues to "securely transmit verified evidence of threats" to state regulators and law enforcement.

"Too often, individuals who lose sports bets direct threatening and harassing messages toward players, coaches, and their families via social media and in-person interactions," the letter states, according to ESPN. "Threatening the safety of an athlete or their family members over a sports bet crosses a bright ethical and criminal line, and it is entirely unacceptable."

The case the leagues keep returning to is that of Lance McCullers, then a Houston Astros pitcher, who said in May 2025 that he had received threats on social media to "find my kids and murder them" after a poor outing. A Houston police investigation determined the messages came from an intoxicated bettor overseas. iGB also cites the earlier prosecution of Benjamin "Parlay" Patz, a California bettor who threatened to "sever" the necks of four Tampa Bay Rays players in 2019, was accused by federal investigators of targeting more than 300 athletes' accounts and pleaded guilty in 2021 without receiving a prison sentence, and a December 2024 Senate Judiciary hearing at which then-chairman Dick Durbin described North Carolina's Armando Bacot receiving more than 100 threats for missing a rebounds line.

The Industry Says It Is Already Building the Tools

Five states already have policies of this kind, ESPN reports: Louisiana, Massachusetts, Ohio, West Virginia and Wyoming. Massachusetts launched its programme on 31 August, using the Gaming Commission's existing exclusion powers, a submission portal and a subpoena route to identify anonymous accounts. The commission cited NCAA research that 51% of Division I men's basketball players have faced online abuse about their performance, 46% of it tied to gambling.

Operators say they are moving on the same problem. DraftKings and Fanatics partnered this summer with Integrity Compliance 360 to deploy technology that uses artificial intelligence and investigative tools to detect social media abuse and identify those behind it; IC360 co-chief executive Scott Sadin told ESPN that "true progress requires a unified response". Joe Maloney, president of the Sports Betting Alliance, told iGB its members are investing in tools and partnerships to identify bad actors and share information with leagues. Fanatics Betting and Gaming chief executive Matt King called it "an infuriating issue" in June, and NBPA president Fred VanVleet said in July that players "carry all of the burden, all of the risk and danger that comes with the association to gambling". NBA commissioner Adam Silver said at his summer press conference that the league could be "a party" to a cross-league effort and may support a federal sports betting tsar.

The Memo Is Addressed to the Wrong Regulator for Half the Market

The leagues have written to state gaming regulators, and state gaming regulators can only exclude people from state-licensed sportsbooks. The fastest-growing venue for wagering on their games is not state-licensed: Kalshi took $4.9 billion on a single NFL weekend under federal commodities regulation, and a bettor banned for life from every state-licensed sportsbook can open an account on a federally regulated exchange the same afternoon. Nothing in the memo, as reported, addresses that, and the leagues know the gap better than anyone: the NFL spent the summer telling the CFTC its rules fall short, and the NBA, which has signed no exchange deal, has spent a year inside its own betting scandals. A lifetime ban that stops at the state line and at the edge of the Commodity Exchange Act is a deterrent for one kind of bettor only.

A Shared List Needs a Mechanism the States Do Not Have

Self-exclusion registers in the United States are state-by-state by design, and the memo's request for an exclusion list "shared among states" asks for something that system has never had to provide. Massachusetts can subpoena an operator to unmask an anonymous account because it licenses that operator; it cannot make Ohio honour the result. Building the shared list means either a compact between states, which takes years, or a private clearing house run by the operators, which is what IC360's contracts with DraftKings and Fanatics already resemble. The leagues may find that the industry builds the infrastructure before the regulators mandate it, and that the memo's real function is to give regulators cover to recognise it.

The Overseas Bettor Is the Case That Proves the Limit

The threat that started this, against McCullers's children, came from abroad, from someone no state list could have excluded and no sportsbook could have identified. That is not an argument against the memo, which will catch the domestic bettor who threatens a kicker after a missed field goal and is the more common case. It is an argument for honesty about what a licensing sanction can do. The leagues are asking for the strongest tool a state regulator has, and it is still a tool that works only on customers who chose to be regulated.

Five leagues and five unions agreeing on anything is news. Agreeing on a remedy that stops where the licensed market does is the beginning of the conversation, not the end of it.