The 2025-26 NBA season is set to get underway on Tuesday night with a game between the Oklahoma City Thunder and Houston Rockets on what will be ring night for Oklahoma City. The NBA has faced criticism over the offseason for numerous different issues, including the expanding number of services fans must have in order to watch the games as well as the rise of gambling taking over the league's advertisements and partnerships.
Recently, NBA commissioner Adam Silver stopped by ESPN's The Pat McAfee Show and spoke on how the league is looking to scale back its association with betting.
“I think you’ve got to monitor the amount of promotion and the amount of advertising around it. Also we’ve pulled back, it’s not completely in our control, but we’ve asked some of our partners to pull back some of the prop bets. Especially when their on two-way players. Guys that don’t have the same stake in the competition,” said Silver, per Pat McAfee on X, formerly Twitter.
“Where it’s too easy to manipulate something which seems otherwise small and inconsequential to the overall score. Maybe a couple rebounds that some player gets or whatever,” he added.
However, Silver acknowledged that “We accept betting is legal in roughly 35 states now in the United States. It’s unlikely to go away. Probably there should be more regulation frankly. May be surprising to hear from me, I wish there was more regulation frankly.”
Many fans indeed may find it surprising that Silver is taking a stance on rolling back gambling in the NBA world considering the league and its television partners' vast amount of partnerships with different sportsbooks, which have drawn complaints from fans. The NBA has also seen a few of its players as targets of gambling probes over the last couple of seasons.
It certainly doesn't appear that the problem is going away anytime soon.
