Tracking the Evolution of Sports Betting Threats

October 19, 2026

The Game Has Changed: Tracking the Evolution of Sports Betting Threats

By TorchStone Intelligence Analyst Jack Jenkins

When TorchStone first examined the security implications of legalized sports gambling and methodologies within protective intelligence to address threats related to the topic in 2024, the primary concern outlined was straightforward: a bettor loses money, develops a grievance against an involved athlete or coach, and expresses that grievance through harassment, threats, or, potentially, violence.

Although that threat remains real, developments since 2024 show that the sports gambling threat environment has become substantially more complex. Online wagering now creates opportunities not only for angry bettors but also for insider trading, performance manipulation, bribery, coercion, exploitation of privileged information, and organized financial schemes.

Additionally, the emergence of prediction markets has expanded that environment further by creating new venues and new types of sports-related financial contracts. These factors have resulted in a broader protective intelligence problem as sports gambling can now serve as the motive, mechanism, intelligence source, and financial incentive behind a threat.

2024 Findings Recap

TorchStone's 2024 assessments noted that losing a significant wager can create a grievance that develops into fixation, violent ideation, threats, and potentially physical action. Athletes are not the only potential targets. Coaches, officials, staff members, and even family members of athletes can also become targets.

An incident in June 2025 involving Houston Astros pitcher Lance McCullers Jr. demonstrated that this threat remains active. Police traced death threats against McCullers and his family to an intoxicated overseas bettor who lost money on an Astros game in which McCullers was the starting pitcher. The threats included references to McCullers' young daughters, prompting the Astros to provide 24-hour security for the pitcher and his family.

The protective intelligence response of monitoring open-source intelligence for indicators of grievance, fixation, escalation, and intent, identifying persons of concern, and moving intelligence from broad trend analysis toward individualized threat assessment and physical security remains relevant, but the difference today is that the grievance model represents only one part of the threat environment.

An Expanded Threat

The events of the past two years demonstrate at least four additional pathways for threats to manifest against organizations:

A person may possess information that has financial value to bettors.
An athlete or other participant may manipulate performance to influence a market.
A sportsbook or sports industry insider may exploit privileged access.
A prediction market participant may use information, relationships, or market access to generate an illicit financial advantage.

The threat therefore increasingly resembles an information security and insider threat problem as much as a traditional fan threat problem

The original threat model still occurs, but the new model operates alongside it, magnifying the overall threat environment. The most consequential developments since 2024 involve people inside the sports ecosystem using access to information or allegedly manipulating events to generate betting profits.

NFL: Executive Caught Leaking Confidential Information on Draft

In July 2026, the National Football League suspended Arizona Cardinals director of college scouting, Ryan Gold indefinitely after determining that he provided confidential, nonpublic information about 2026 draft selections before those selections were announced and participated in parlay bets on NFL and college games. Although the NFL said it found no indication that game integrity had been affected, it treated the disclosure of nonpublic information as a serious gambling policy violation.

This is an example of how information does not have to determine the outcome of a game to create a security or integrity concern. A confidential draft selection, injury update, lineup change, or other nonpublic facts can possess financial value before it becomes public.

NBA: Federal Investigations into Gambling Activity Involving Coaches and Players

In October 2025, federal authorities arrested Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier, Portland Trail Blazers head coach Chauncey Billups, and former NBA player and coach Damon Jones as part of separate investigations into illegal sports betting and other gambling activity. Investigators alleged that participants used nonpublic information, including information about player performance and decisions to leave games, to place wagers.

Nonpublic information about an injury, anticipated playing time, a planned substitution, or a player's expected performance can become monetizable intelligence. Once an individual understands that information has a price, the protective concern expands beyond the athlete or team to everyone who can access the information upstream. Individuals that may possess this type of information include trainers, medical personnel, agents, analysts, team employees, and others who routinely handle nonpublic information.

MLB: Micro-Markets Create Micro Targets

The 2025 investigation involving Cleveland Guardians pitchers Emmanual Clase and Luis Ortiz provided an example of athletes manipulating performance in an effort to profit from sports betting.

Federal prosecutors alleged that Clase and Ortiz participated in a scheme to manipulate individual pitches, so bettors could profit from prop bets involving pitch characteristics and outcomes. Prosecutors allege that Clase began the scheme along with corrupt sports bettors starting around May 2023 and caused his co-conspirators to collect at least $400,000 in fraudulent wins. Ortiz joined the scheme around June 2025, agreeing with Clase in advance to throw balls (instead of strikes) on pitches in two games in exchange for bribes and kickbacks.

The significance of this activity for protective intelligence extends beyond the allegations themselves. Individual pitch markets create extremely narrow points of influence. A participant does not need to determine the winner of an entire game. The alleged manipulation of one pitch can be sufficient.

This example clearly illustrates how individual performance markets can create opportunities for manipulation of performance, bribery and coercion, insider information, and collusion between participants and bettors.

Collegiate sports officials have recognized the same concern. In January 2026, NCAA President Charlie Baker called on state gambling commissions to eliminate individual prop bets and other high risk prop bets while citing threats to athlete well-being and sports integrity. The NCAA also asked regulators to impose stronger accountability on bettors who harass student athletes or attempt to influence betting behavior.

College Basketball: The Athlete Becomes the Target and Source

A June 2026 NCAA resolution involving former Iona University basketball player Adam Njie Jr. demonstrates how athletes can collaborate with corrupt sports bettors to influence game outcomes while also becoming the target of retaliation and threats. According to the NCAA, Njie worked with known bettors, agreeing to throw the first half of the involved game while bettors placed three bets totaling $15,500 on another school to win the first half spread line against Iona in December 2024. However, Njie stated that he did not go through with it, resulting in lost bets.

After the game, a bettor threatened Njie with bodily harm in retaliation. In response, Njie told the bettor that he would throw the first half of Iona's next game to make up for the losses. However, Njie once again claimed that he did not go through with the act of intentionally losing the first half.

Njie's role as a source of information and a target of retaliation of threats highlights how an individual involved in a gambling scheme may simultaneously represent a potential threat, a potential victim, a source of information, or some combination of all three.

Also related to college basketball, in January 2026, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania announced charges against 26 people in an alleged international scheme involving NCAA Division 1 and Chinese Basketball Association games. Prosecutors alleged that fixers recruited and bribed players to influence performances and then placed wagers based on the manipulated outcomes.

These cases demonstrate that sports gambling can create an incentive structure in which a participant does not simply provide information but becomes part of the mechanism that produces the betting outcome.

The Insider Threat Can Infiltrate Sportsbooks

In July 2026, authorities charged former DraftKings sports trader Samuel Silverman in connection with an alleged betting scheme involving a former Fresno State basketball player. Investigators alleged that the player manipulated his performance in a January 2025 game while associates placed wagers on his player statistics. Authorities allege that Silverman helped facilitate the wagers and distribute proceeds.

DraftKings stated that Silverman and another employee involved in the investigation did not set college basketball odds and that the alleged activity did not occur on DraftKings' platform. The company also said its internal review found no evidence that internal information affected customers.

Despite DraftKings' claims, the case illustrates how trusted access itself creates risk. Sportsbook employees are not necessarily capable of manipulating sporting events, but they can possess knowledge of markets, betting patterns, customer behavior, internal controls, surveillance systems, and other sensitive information.

Prediction Markets Expanding Opportunities for Manipulation

The emergence of prediction markets represents the most significant structural change in the sports betting industry since 2024. Platforms such as Kalshi and Polymarket have rapidly expanded the number and type of events on which participants can trade. Sports have been a major component of that growth. ESPN reported in late 2025 that sports accounted for the majority of Kalshi's trading volume and that Kalshi had expanded into NBA and NFL prop-style markets. DraftKings subsequently launched its own prediction market exchange while also expanding player specific sports contracts through partnerships with other exchanges.

The distinction between a sportsbook wager and a prediction market contract matters legally and financially, but from a protective intelligence perspective, the more important question is what the expansion creates: More wagerable events, participants, and money increase the potential for more grievances, incentives, and opportunities for manipulation.

Prediction markets also create a more complicated regulatory environment. Traditional sportsbooks generally operate under state gambling laws, while prediction market operators have argued that their event contracts fall under federal commodities regulation. In July 2026, a federal judge rejected Kalshi's effort to block New York from enforcing its gambling laws against the company, finding that New York's laws, as applied to Kalshi's sports event contracts, were not preempted by federal law.

For protective intelligence, the legal classification matters less than the practical impact. Sports-related financial markets continue to expand across platforms and regulatory frameworks, creating more threat activity for teams, compliance personnel, and protective intelligence professionals to track and understand.

Implications for Protective Intelligence

The expanded threat environment surrounding sports betting requires a corresponding expansion in collection and analysis. Protective intelligence teams should monitor not only direct social media threats, but also broader indicators surrounding gambling and sports integrity. Potential indicators include betting related controversies, prediction market activity, integrity investigations, regulatory actions, unusual betting patterns, individuals with privileged access, major betting events and high-profile games, individuals experiencing significant betting losses, and public disputes involving athletes and bettors.

TorchStone's layered intelligence program remains particularly well suited to monitor this environment. The first layer identifies broad trends and threat drivers. The second focuses on specific people, places, events, and potential targets. The third connects intelligence to physical protection, allowing security personnel to prioritize focusing resources and efforts on mitigating threats posed by identified persons of concern.

Conclusion:

Online sports gambling remains a source of direct threats and harassment against athletes, coaches, officials, staff, and families. The events since 2024 demonstrate that the threat has evolved beyond the angry bettor. Sports gambling can now provide the motive for a threat, the mechanism for manipulating an event, the intelligence source that enables financial exploitation, and financial incentive that drives insider misconduct.

Prediction markets have expanded that ecosystem further. Individual performance markets have created increasingly precise opportunities to monetize information or manipulate outcomes. Recent investigations involving NBA and NFL personnel, MLB pitchers, college athletes, and a former sportsbook employee demonstrate that the relevant threat actors can occupy almost any position in the sports and gambling ecosystem.

The protective question is no longer simply, "Who might threaten this athlete because they lost a bet?" It now includes broader questions:

Who has valuable information?
Who has access to it?
Who stands to profit?
Who might attempt to influence the outcome?
Who might be coerced?
Who might retaliate?
When do these factors converge into a physical security concern?

Answering those questions requires the same principles outlined by TorchStone in 2024; using intelligence to move from broad trends to individual assessment, and ultimately, informed protective action. The difference in 2026 is that the intelligence picture is larger and the consequences of missing the signal can extend well beyond a threatening message.