NBA Tells Sportsbook Partners to Drop Same-Player Under Parlays, Opening Tip Bets and Low-Minute Unders

The league has used its commercial agreements, not a state rule, to strip out the bet types at the centre of the Jontay Porter and Terry Rozier cases before the 2026-27 season. Prediction markets, where it has no agreements, are untouched.

• The NBA told its sportsbook partners in a memo dated 16 October to stop offering parlays that include the under on the same player's statistics, bets on the opening tip, bets on players missing specific shots and unders on players expected to play fewer than 12 minutes, according to ESPN, which obtained the memo
• Alternate under lines with larger payouts are also barred, and Front Office Sports reports that individual "first-of" markets are banned and that the rules will reach the WNBA next season
• NBA executive vice president Scott Kaufman-Ross told ESPN the league was balancing removing "problematic bet types" against pushing activity into the illegal market, and said the Porter and Rozier cases were factors
• The league enforces the restrictions through its sportsbook agreements, whose operators it estimates account for upward of 99% of the US betting market; DraftKings, FanDuel, Fanatics and Caesars have said they support or will comply
• The rules do not reach prediction markets, and they follow Shane Hennen's guilty plea to two counts from the Brooklyn case that charged Rozier

The League Removes the Bets That a Single Early Exit Can Settle

The NBA sent the memo to its authorised gaming operators, including DraftKings and FanDuel, on Friday 16 October, ESPN reported that day. Bettors can no longer include the under on the same player's statistics in a parlay, which the memo calls "low likelihood, high payout bets", according to ESPN. Operators must also stop offering bets on the opening tip, on players to miss specific shots and on unders for players expected to play fewer than 12 minutes, and must drop alternate under lines with larger payouts. The Associated Press, which obtained the memos to sportsbooks and teams, reported that markets on which player records the first statistic of a game are also gone.

Front Office Sports, which was shown both documents, reported that the "first-of" ban covers a player's first points, rebound, assist, steal or block, and that the league is not banning all under bets. The restrictions will also apply to the WNBA next season, it reported. The memo has not been published.

The measures add to earlier ones. After the Porter case the league barred unders on players on two-way contracts, according to ESPN, and existing rules restrict certain bets on short-term contracts, turnovers, fouls and missed free throws, Legal Sports Report reported. The league says its agreements give it the authority to restrict what partners offer.

"There's a balance between ensuring that we are removing problematic bet types but also ensuring that we don't just move activity into the illegal market," Kaufman-Ross told ESPN. "And where we landed right now, we think, is the right balance of those two objectives." He said the league considered the whole betting landscape, including prediction markets, but acknowledged that without agreements there, enforcing the restrictions could be challenging.

The Cases Behind the List

Parlays on a single player's unders appear in both federal cases. Porter admitted removing himself from games early to benefit bettors while on a two-way contract with the Toronto Raptors in 2023-24, and was banned for life in April 2024. According to the criminal complaint, as reported by ESPN, one bettor placed an $80,000 parlay on the under on six of Porter's statistics for a March 2024 game against the Sacramento Kings that would have paid approximately $1.1 million; Porter played three minutes. Prosecutors allege a similar approach with Rozier, who left a March 2023 Charlotte Hornets game after about nine minutes. Rozier has pleaded not guilty and denied wrongdoing; his trial is set for February 2027. Hennen, whom the Brooklyn indictment accuses of placing about $61,200 on Rozier's unders before that game, pleaded guilty on 14 October.

A separate memo to teams sets out integrity measures, according to ESPN and Front Office Sports. Former NFL player and retired FBI agent Charles Tillman will lead mandatory in-person training on betting rules, the league is enhancing its AI-based monitoring platform, and it has added a hotline and a Social Protect partnership against harassment by bettors. The memos came two days after the NBA and WNBA named prediction markets in a responsible gaming campaign.

DraftKings said the guidance "formalizes many of the market restrictions already reflected" in its practices, according to Front Office Sports. FanDuel said the legal industry "is built on a foundation of dialogue and collaboration with our league partners and the states in which we operate". Caesars told Front Office Sports: "Of course we are complying." iGaming Times found no public statement on the memo from a state regulator.

The League Is Now Writing the Rules the States Have Not

The most consequential fact is the mechanism. In December 2025 the NBA told teams it wanted caps on prop wagers, limits on unders and the removal of bets decided by a single play, but said it lacked control over which bets were offered and would need negotiations, regulators or legislation, ESPN reported as the league tightened its rules amid the federal probe. Ten months on, it has done it by contract. Baseball set the template in November 2025, when Major League Baseball and operators covering more than 98% of the market capped pitch-level bets at $200 and barred them from parlays; the Ohio Casino Control Commission then dropped its own draft rule, saying it could act "should it become apparent that regulatory action is necessary". Michigan's regulator said that month that it already approves wager types and would assess whether "additional restrictions are necessary". The result is national consistency faster than dozens of state rulebooks could deliver, set in a commercial document regulators did not write and the public cannot read. None of the reports of Friday's memo mentions a stake cap, one of the measures listed in December.

The List Targets the Pattern, Not the Network

The restrictions are well aimed. A player who leaves early hits every under at once, and a parlay of those unders turns inside knowledge into a payout of more than 13 times the stake, as in the Porter complaint. Removing low-minute unders and same-player under parlays takes away the cheapest way to profit from a planned early exit. But the Hennen case shows the money also moved through retail counters and straw bettors, and the list does nothing about a straight under spread across many accounts, so detection still rests on monitoring. The softer claims deserve a sceptical read: FanDuel's statement repeats almost word for word what its president said when baseball's limits were announced, and DraftKings says it already reflected many of the restrictions, so operator support costs little.

Prediction Markets Are the Gap Kaufman-Ross Named

The channelisation argument cuts both ways. Bets removed from licensed books can move offshore, or to prediction markets, which operate under federal commodities oversight and sit outside any NBA agreement. Commissioner Adam Silver told CNBC this month that the league wants access to that data and "control of the market", according to Front Office Sports, which reported that deal talks are advanced but stuck on control. Until a deal exists, a single-player under that a licensed sportsbook can no longer parlay may be tradable elsewhere with no league oversight. In baseball, the players' union told Congress in August that it had proposed banning in-game performance props and event contracts alike.

The NBA has closed the doors the Porter and Rozier bets went through, using leverage over the operators that hold almost all of the legal market. The test now is whether it can get the same terms from platforms that are not its partners, and whether any regulator writes them down.