NBA Tanking Forces Sportsbooks to Reprice Lines and Tighten Limits
At least eight NBA teams are prioritising draft position over winning this season. Sportsbooks are repricing moneylines and pulling back limits in response.
The Utah Jazz and Indiana Pacers drew NBA fines of $500,000 and $100,000, respectively. The Chicago Bulls, Sacramento Kings, Dallas Mavericks, Memphis Grizzlies, Brooklyn Nets, and Washington Wizards are also among the franchises thought to be managing for draft position over results.
Jeff Sherman, Vice President of Risk at the Westgate SuperBook in Las Vegas, confirmed that books are adjusting moneylines beyond what point spreads alone would suggest. “The public likes to bet against those teams in parlays, most notably on the moneyline, so you’re seeing a little bit of a difference there,” he told Gambling Insider.
Mid-Game Substitutions Remove the Sharp Edge
The bigger problem for oddsmakers is not tanking itself but how teams execute it. Several franchises start key players and pull them in the second half rather than listing them on injury reports. That removes the advanced information edge that sharp bettors typically rely on.
Chris Bennett, Sportsbook Director at Circa Sports, explained the challenge. “The Jazz have started their best players in games and then just taken them out in the second half. That is fundamentally different than when a team announces that someone isn’t going to play at all before a game starts,” he said.
Sherman described Westgate’s current approach. When mid-game information surfaces, the book shuts the game down temporarily rather than adjusting on the fly. “We just shut the game down, give it a minute, think about it, kind of put together a market reaction and get the line back up,” he noted.
VSiN host Gill Alexander said that tanking makes life harder for model-based bettors. “It’s one thing to know injuries, it’s another thing to be able to wrap your arms around who’s going to sit in the 4th quarter,” Alexander claimed.
Circa Tightens NBA Limits
Circa Sports accepts large bets on NFL and college football. The NBA is a different matter. Bennett said CEO Derek Stevens applies far less enthusiasm to NBA betting limits, and tanking is a key reason. “It’s not new what we’re dealing with, but it is evolving over the years, and we’re just gonna set limits appropriately so we can’t get burned too badly,” he said.
TGJ Take
Tanking is not new, but the mid-game substitution tactic is making the NBA harder to price for books and sharp bettors alike. Books respond with tighter limits and temporary line closures. Moneylines no longer track point spreads as closely as they once did. NBA fines have not changed team behaviour. Until the league restructures draft pick incentives, books will keep treating the NBA as a higher-risk product than the NFL and college football.
