The Sports-Betting Disaster

When I interviewed the N.B.A. agent Daniel Hazan last year, he warned that the legalization of sports gambling was a disaster waiting to happen. Athletes have so many opportunities to manipulate games and swing the outcome of a bet, he explained—especially the “prop” bets on individual player performance which have become online sportsbooks’ biggest money-maker. “It’s just another added temptation that’s right in your face at all times that I don’t want the guys to deal with,” he said.