The Fix Is Not In: Can Sports Gambling’s Trust Crisis Be Solved?

Lanny Brannock lives just outside Lexington, Kentucky, which makes him partial to Cincinnati sports . And as the co-host of a podcast in which he wagers tiny sums on sporting events, he is hyper-engaged on outcomes. It just isn’t always as a sports superfan.

“It does take some of the joy out of watching the game,” he says. “You’re not just watching it for the sheer athletic ability anymore because you’re financially involved.”

Brannock has no plans to stop betting, but thanks to a wave of recent athlete gambling scandals, he’s growing concerned about the integrity of the onscreen product — and what it means for sports. Related Stories Business Another California Sports Team Sold As Stan Kroenke Cuts Deal to Buy Los Angeles Angels TV Where to Watch the 2026 U.S. Open Tennis Tournament Online

“If you start to lose a segment of your fan base because people believe with some reasoned certainty that there are predetermined outcomes, or players are going into business for themselves, then it will hurt sports overall,” he tells me.

While the sports industrial complex has largely been immune from America’s trust crisis, new concerns over betting’s influence on game integrity are not only worrying fans like Brannock, but also league officials. “It’s on everybody’s mind,” says John Kosner, a former ESPN executive.

Each of the United States’ four biggest leagues — the NFL, NBA, MLB and NHL — has investigated its personnel for suspicious betting activity in the past 12 months, causing some spectators to consider whether sports are morphing into WrestleMania. “The nightmare scenario for the leagues is that people see professional sports as professional wrestling,” says Jonathan D. Cohen, the author of Losing Big: America’s Reckless Bet on Sports Gambling .

Plenty of people still watch WWE, even after Vince McMahon had to admit its staging in 1989, but its revenues are dwarfed by rival three-letter leagues. That’s because content companies are willing to shell out major bucks to air live, anything-can-happen matches, which tend to draw bigger audiences than scripted fare. But fans’ growing distrust of airtight competition could threaten to puncture sky-high media rights.

NBC News found that 70 percent of Americans believe betting “lessens the integrity of the game,” according to the December poll . Meanwhile, a recent Ipsos poll revealed that almost half of all Americans are concerned that games are “rigged” due to betting.

It’s contributed to the rise of a police force for sportsbooks. There are now a number of betting monitoring companies eagle-eyed on spotting suspicious wagers. Integrity Compliance 360 is one of the biggest in the space. In 2023, IC360, as it’s also known, cut a deal with UFC to identify shady bets. “These guys are really good at seeing weird betting patterns, and they literally reach out to you and say, ‘Hey, there’s some goofy stuff going on with this fight,’” UFC impresario Dana White told CNBC’s Andrew Ross Sorkin in July.