Sports betting can be confusing for players so NBA helps them discern what is wrong or right

LAS VEGAS (AP) — One Jontay Porter was one too many for the NBA when it comes to sports betting.

The NBA has led the way for American professional sports leagues’ foray into the once-forbidden territory while trying to balance betting and the integrity of the game. The NBA has established guidelines and an educational program to educate those from the league office to players, coaches and support staff on individual teams so that they understand the potential pitfalls for breaking any rules.

Violations of those established guidelines can result in lifetime banishment.

“A lot of what is happening is a lack of awareness, a lack of sophistication, what is OK and what isn’t OK,” said Baird Fogel, a California attorney who works with the sports-betting industry. “To some people, it would seem kind of a given, but for a lot of folks ... it is new territory.”

It became costly territory for Porter when he was playing for the Toronto Raptors.

He received a lifetime ban in April for betting on games — including on the Raptors to lose — and disclosing confidential information to gamblers.

To prevent more such instances from occurring, the NBA works with the National Basketball Players Association to make addressing sports betting a priority.

Rookies attend a session on sports-betting awareness as part of their required general training that also includes on- and off-court topics such as how to handle financial matters and interactions with coaches, teammates and media.

Dalton Knecht, who was drafted 17th overall by the Los Angeles Lakers this year, said the league does a good job of not overcomplicating the issue.

“Personally, I don’t gamble," Knecht said after a preseason game against the Golden State Warriors in Las Vegas. "I’m not going to go gamble. They talk about it. They’ll say, ‘You can't bet stuff' and all that. They keep it simple.”

But it’s not just entry-level players. All who wear NBA uniforms must take part in an annual anti-betting session conducted either by the league or the player’s respective team. Failure to attend, barring what is deemed a valid excuse, is a $100,000 fine.

League and team personnel also undergo similar training.

“Maintaining the integrity of our game is paramount and has been since long before sports betting was legalized across the United States,” the league said in a statement to The Associated Press. “We have a multi-faceted compliance and monitoring program ...”.

But things aren't always that simple.

Fogel said part of what complicates matters is that leagues and teams have professional relationships with sports-betting companies that can blur the lines between what is and isn’t acceptable.

After Commissioner Adam Silver penned an op-ed in The New York Times nearly 10 years ago supporting legalizing and regulating sports betting, the NBA in 2018 became the first major American professional sports league to sign a contract with a gambling company when it agreed to a deal with MGM. The league also signed FanDuel and DraftKings as official sponsors in 2021.

Teams have their own agreements. The reigning NBA champion Boston Celtics, for example, agreed to a deal with FanDuel in May to sponsor a docuseries during what became a successful run to their record 18th championship.

Leagues and teams are eager to take the enormous amount of money that comes from such sponsorships while at the same time making sure that the perception that games are being fairly played isn't altered.

“So it’s getting harder, I think, for a player to discern what is wrong or right,” Fogel said.

Changing enforcement rules in different sports also has created potential confusion.

The NCAA last year decided to take into account several factors, including the amount of money on bets, before weighing what penalties to levy. The largest governing body for collegiate sports also eased reinstatement rules.

The NBA in conjunction with the players union have maintained the same disciplinary rules that have been in place since shortly after the U.S. Supreme Court cleared the way six years ago for all states to legalize sports betting.

Now 38 states plus Washington, D.C, have legalized sports betting, and the NBA — like other leagues — is trying to keep up with the times. Fogel said that because each state has its own rules and regulations, that adds to uncertainty about what is permissible.

“Look, we just went through a sea change in sports betting,” Fogel said. “These same organizations that are now embracing these sponsorship relationships with the Caesars and the MGMs of the world are the same ones that were on the other side of that Supreme Court decision in 2018 begging the Supreme Court to not legalize sports betting.

“It’s understandable that there’s a lot of confusion, and the best way to overcome that is through education and training.”

Freelance writer W.G. Ramirez contributed to this report.

AP NBA: https://apnews.com/hub/NBA

FILE - NBA Commissioner Adam Silver talks to reporters, June 6, 2024, in Boston. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa, File)

Los Angeles Clippers players listen to the national anthem before an NBA preseason basketball game against the Dallas Mavericks at Intuit Dome in Inglewood, Calif., Monday, Oct. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

The Los Angeles Clippers play the Dallas Mavericks during the first half of an NBA preseason basketball game Monday, Oct. 14, 2024, in Inglewood, Calif. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

NEW YORK (AP) — RTX Corporation, the defense contractor formerly known as Raytheon, agreed Wednesday to pay $950 million to resolve allegations that it defrauded the government and paid bribes to secure business with Qatar.

The company entered into deferred prosecution agreements in separate cases in federal court in Brooklyn and Massachusetts, agreed to hire independent monitors to oversee compliance with anti-corruption and anti-fraud laws and must show good conduct for three years.

The money the company owes includes penalties in the criminal cases, as well as civil fines, restitution and the return of profits it derived from inflated Defense Department billing and business derived from alleged bribes paid to a high-ranking Qatari military official from 2012 to 2016.

The amount includes a $428 million settlement for lying to the government about its labor and material costs to justify costlier no-bid contracts and drive the company's profits higher. The company was also accused of double-billing the government on a weapons maintenance contract.

It also includes nearly $400 million in criminal penalties in the Brooklyn case, involving the alleged bribes, and in the Massachusetts case, in which the company was accused of inflating its costs by $111 million for missile systems from 2011 to 2013 and the operation of a radar surveillance system in 2017.

It also agreed to pay a $52.5 million civil penalty to resolve a parallel Securities and Exchange Commission investigation and must forfeit at least $66 million to satisfy both probes.

At a brief hearing in federal court in Brooklyn, lawyers for RTX waived their right to an indictment and pleaded not guilty to charges that the company violated the anti-bribery provision of the Foreign Corruption Practices Act and the Arms Export Control Act. They did not object to any of the allegations in court documents filed in conjunction with the agreement.

RTX said in a statement that it is “taking responsibility for the misconduct that occurred” and is “committed to maintaining a world-class compliance program, following global laws, regulations and internal policies, while upholding integrity and serving our customers in an ethical matter.”

A message seeking comment was left for the Qatari embassy in Washington.

RTX said in a July regulatory filing that it set aside $1.24 billion to resolve pending legal and regulatory matters. The company's president and CEO, Christopher Calio, told investors that the investigations largely involved issues that predated the Raytheon-United Technologies merger that formed the current company in 2020.

“These matters primarily arose out of legacy Raytheon Company and Rockwell Collins prior to the merger and acquisition of these companies,” Calio said. “We’ve already taken robust corrective actions to address the legacy gaps that led to these issues.”

According to court documents, Raytheon employees and agents offered and paid bribes to a high-ranking Qatari military official to gain an advantage in obtaining lucrative business deals with the Qatar Emiri Air Force and Qatar Armed Forces.

The company then succeeded in securing four additions to an existing contract with the Gulf Cooperation Council — a regional union of Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates — and a $510 million sole-sourced contract to build a joint- operations center for the Qatari military, the court documents said.

Raytheon made about $36.7 million in profit from the Gulf Cooperation Council contract additions and anticipated making more than $72 million on the joint operations center, but the Qatari government ultimately did not go forward with the deal, prosecutors said.

In the price inflation case, Raytheon allegedly lied to the government about the costs it would incur in building three Patriot missile firing units — also known as missile batteries — leading the U.S. Army to agree to a $619 million contract.

In a 2013 email cited in court papers, a Raytheon employee told a Pentagon official that the company's expected costs had increased when, according to prosecutors, they had actually gone down. Prosecutors said the government overpaid for the weapons by about $100 million.

Raytheon was also accused of misleading the U.S. Air Force in 2017 about the costs associated with operating and maintaining a radar surveillance system, including by arguing that it needed to give employees lucrative compensation packages to maintain adequate staffing.

In reality, prosecutors wrote in court papers, the company “was secretly preparing to reduce the pay” of site employees “in order to improve the company’s profitability.”

The contract was fraudulently inflated by $11 million, prosecutors said.

Wednesday's penalties are just the latest legal fallout from RTX's business dealings.

In August, the company agreed to pay $200 million to the State Department after voluntarily disclosing more than two dozen alleged violations of the Arms Export Control Act and International Traffic in Arms Regulations.

Among the allegations were that the company provided classified military aircraft data to China and that employees took company-issued laptops containing information about missiles and aircraft into Iran, Lebanon and Russia.

FILE - The sky is reflected on the facade of Raytheon's Integrated Defense Systems facility, Monday, June 10, 2019, in Woburn, Mass. (AP Photo/Elise Amendola, File)