The Athletic’s June 3 report on match-fixing and gambling arrests in the NBA and MLB has put a sharp question before American sports: whether the United States can tighten its betting-integrity systems before legal wagering, player props and micro-bets create the same vulnerabilities that Europe has spent years trying to contain.

The timing is difficult for U.S. leagues. On Thursday, Reuters reported that Terry Rozier is contesting a ruling that allows the NBA to withhold most of his $26.6 million salary because of his alleged role in an illegal gambling scheme. Rozier was indicted in October 2025 on conspiracy charges tied to allegations that he provided information connected to a March 2023 game, allowing bettors to profit from wagers based on his expected statistical underperformance. He has pleaded not guilty, and his legal team has emphasized the presumption of innocence.

The Rozier dispute is part of a wider NBA reckoning that began with the Jontay Porter case. In April 2024, the NBA banned Porter for life after a league investigation found that he disclosed confidential information to sports bettors, limited his own participation in at least one game for betting purposes and placed bets on NBA games. The Porter case quickly became a defining example of how player-prop markets can create a target for manipulation: a bettor does not need a fixed final score if the wager turns on minutes played, rebounds, assists or a single player’s availability.

MLB has faced a parallel version of that problem through pitch-level markets. In November 2025, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York announced charges against Cleveland Guardians pitchers Emmanuel Clase and Luis Ortiz, alleging that they helped rig specific pitches so bettors could win wagers on individual pitch outcomes. Prosecutors said the scheme involved non-public information, bribes and bets on whether particular pitches would be balls, strikes or meet certain velocity markers. The charges remain allegations, and the defendants are presumed innocent unless proven guilty.

The baseball case prompted one of the most concrete betting restrictions yet adopted by a major U.S. league. MLB and its sportsbook partners announced limits on pitch-level wagers, capping those bets at $200 and excluding them from parlays. The league said operators representing more than 98% of the U.S. betting market would implement the restrictions. Commissioner Rob Manfred framed the move as an integrity measure aimed at markets that can be determined by one player on one action, sometimes without altering the game’s broader competitive result.

That is where Europe’s experience becomes especially relevant. Match-fixing scandals in European soccer, tennis and lower-tier competitions have shown that corruption often begins where oversight is thin, compensation gaps are wide and betting markets are highly specific. Authorities in Europe have treated the problem as a cross-border criminal issue, not merely a rules violation. Europol has described sports corruption as a field involving organized crime, illegal betting, money laundering and manipulation of competitions. The Council of Europe’s Macolin Convention, which entered into force in 2019, was built around the same premise: public authorities, sports organizations, betting operators and competition organizers must cooperate to prevent, detect and sanction manipulation.

The U.S. sports model is more fragmented. Sports betting has expanded state by state since the Supreme Court’s 2018 Murphy decision opened the door to legalization. Leagues set their own rules. Sportsbooks report suspicious activity through commercial and regulatory channels. State regulators license and police operators. Federal prosecutors become involved when alleged conduct crosses into wire fraud, money laundering, bribery or organized criminal activity. The FBI says its Crime and Corruption in Sport and Gaming program focuses on illegal betting, game manipulation, bribery, extortion and threats against athletes, officials and staff.

That structure can work when suspicious betting is detected early and routed quickly to the right authorities. But it also creates gaps. A suspicious wager may be placed in one state, involve an athlete in another, originate through an intermediary in a third jurisdiction and be linked to offshore accounts or illegal books beyond U.S. regulatory visibility. Europe’s record suggests that integrity systems are strongest when reporting channels are mandatory, information sharing is standardized and betting operators have clear duties to escalate suspicious markets.

The most exposed products are not always traditional point spreads or money lines. The newer risk is the growth of highly granular bets: a pitch, a foul, a yellow card, a first free throw, a player’s rebound total, a substitution window or an injury-linked under. These markets are attractive because they create continuous engagement during games. They are also vulnerable because they may be easier for one participant to influence and harder for fans to distinguish from ordinary performance variance.

MLB’s pitch-level limits are therefore a test case for other U.S. leagues. The cap does not eliminate the market, but it reduces the financial upside and blocks parlays that could magnify payouts. Basketball may face a harder question because player props are deeply embedded in the betting product around the NBA and college basketball. Football, hockey, soccer and tennis have similar exposure wherever single-player or single-event bets become high-volume markets.

There is also a labor and athlete-welfare dimension. European investigations have often found that lower-paid players, lower-tier officials and financially stressed participants are more vulnerable to approaches from fixers. U.S. major leagues pay far more at the top level, but the risk is not limited to stars. Two-way players, minor leaguers, college athletes, referees, trainers, friends, agents and relatives may all have access to information that can move a prop market. The more valuable that information becomes, the more pressure leagues face to control locker-room access, injury reporting, device use and relationships with bettors.

The public-trust issue is larger than any single case. U.S. leagues have spent years telling fans that regulated betting is safer than illegal markets because licensed operators can monitor, detect and report suspicious activity. Recent cases support that argument in part: unusual betting patterns can generate alerts. But they also expose the other side of legalization: once leagues and media partners promote betting as part of the viewing experience, fans may question whether commercial incentives are moving faster than integrity safeguards.

Europe’s lesson is not that betting must be pushed back underground. It is that legal betting requires infrastructure equal to the speed and scale of the market. That means limits on the most manipulable wagers, formal cooperation between regulators and leagues, independent integrity monitoring, strong education for athletes and staff, and clear penalties for anyone who shares inside information or influences a contest for betting gain.

For the NBA and MLB, the next phase will be measured less by public statements than by operational changes: which bet types remain available, how quickly suspicious activity is shared, whether federal and state regulators demand more disclosure, and whether leagues are willing to restrict lucrative markets before the next indictment forces their hand. The Athletic’s question about Europe’s scars is now a U.S. governance question: whether American sports can learn from established corruption patterns while the market is still young enough to adjust.