NBA Bans Same-Player Under Parlays, Opening-Tip Bets in New Memo to Sportsbooks

The NBA is taking some of the most popular prop markets off the board this season. In a memo sent to its sportsbook partners Friday, first reported by ESPN's David Purdum (@DavidPurdum) and Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania), the league banned parlays that stack unders on the same player's stats. That's exactly the bet that turned up in the federal cases against Jontay Porter and Terry Rozier.

What's off the board

Books like DraftKings and FanDuel have also been told to stop offering:

• Bets on the opening-tip winner
• Bets on players missing specific shots
• Unders on players expected to play fewer than 12 minutes
• Alternate under lines with bigger payouts

Why the league acted

The memo calls these "low likelihood, high payout bets," and the Porter case shows why. Prosecutors say one bettor placed an $80,000 parlay on Porter's unders that would have paid about $1.1 million, and Porter left that game after three minutes.

NBA EVP Scott Kaufman-Ross told ESPN the league is trying to remove problem bets "but also ensuring that we don't just move activity into the illegal market." The NBA says its partner books handle upward of 99% of the legal U.S. market, so these rules effectively apply to the whole regulated market.

The prediction-market gap

Prediction markets are the gap: the league has no deals with them, and Kaufman-Ross admitted enforcement there "could be challenging." The league is also expanding its AI-based betting monitoring and adding new protections against bettors harassing players.

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