Injury reports the first of many positive changes legalized betting will bring 

Those who tuned in for pre-game of Thursday night’s Game 6 between the Phoenix Suns and New Orleans Pelicans were no doubt surprised to find opening odds NBA Finals MVP favorite Devin Booker in uniform, warming up and preparing to play. 

Among those claiming to be surprised was the NBA, which on Saturday fined the Suns $25,000 for failing to inform of Booker’s status change from “Out” to “Questionable” in an “accurate and timely manner.” 

The fine is a tiny sum for a major sports franchise, but the relevance of the fine and the attention it’s garnered is a big deal for the still nascent world of legal sports gambling in the U.S. 

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Ostensibly, the NBA could, and would contend the Suns were fined for trying to gain a competitive advantage by not changing Booker’s status by 5 p.m. the day before the contest, but nobody buys that as the real reason for the fine. 

As ESPN.com wrote in the concluding paragraph of its story on the fine Saturday night: “Since announcing DraftKings and FanDuel as their "co-official" sports betting partners in November 2021, the league has placed a greater priority on teams following the injury report protocol, as player status information is paramount to the integrity of wagers being placed on the games.” 

This is a monumental feather in the cap of legalized sports gambling. We can only assume as a result that now gone are the days of Bill Bellichick declaring Tom Brady “Questionable (Shoulder)” every week for 20 years because now — don’t laugh — bookmakers are demanding integrity. 

Oh, how the worm has turned! 

Transparent injury reports may be the first, but certainly won’t be the last impact the spread of legalized, online sports betting will have on the rules and regulations in the sports world as a whole. 

Here’s three other impacts we could or should see in the near future.: 

The end of disqualification by personal fouls 

It’s widely known that disgraced former NBA referee Tim Donaghy fixed games by calling excessive fouls on one team to ensure the spread was covered. The easiest and most inconspicuous way of doing this is to levy fouls against a star player to force him to the bench with foul trouble. 

Netflix is reportedly ready to release a film about Tim Donaghy that the NBA will be none-too-happy about.

Even in cases — the 99.99999999% of them where there is no crooked ref cooking the outcome, foul trouble affects officiating. For instance, in Game 4 of the 2021 NBA Finals, the aforementioned Booker had five fouls on him when took what looked to be a bizarre intentional foul on the Milwaukee Bucks Jrue Holiday, but not even a common foul was called because the refs did not want to ‘affect the outcome’ by taking the Suns’ star out of commission with his sixth foul. 

Of course, by not calling it because they’re aware of his foul situation, they ARE affecting the outcome even more. And if refs are willing to look the other way to ensure an exciting finish for the sake of TV ratings, who’s to say why else they might blow their whistles one way or another? 

A simple solution to all of this: End disqualification by fouling out. Every foul committed by a player with six fouls or more includes a technical foul shot. This was implemented in the 1980s by the now-defunct Continental Basketball Association. It was a brilliant idea then and a better one in the world of legalized sports betting. 

It’s a significant additional penalty for keeping a player in the game with six fouls, but it would take away a lot of temptation and power from the next Tim Donaghy and it would take lot of pressure off of refs not wanting to send star players to the showers. 

Make NFL officials full-time employees 

While every other major sports organization has full-time employees for its officials, the NFL relies on Type-A personality freelancers who Monday through Friday are doctors, lawyers and accountants and by weekend, Zebras in the circus maximus that is the NFL. 

In the era of legalized online sports gambling, this has to stop sooner rather than later. 

Being an NFL referee has to be a Thursday-through-Monday, 40-plus hour, salaried position that pays well into the six-figures with daily conference meetings and individual meetings to review week-to-week performance. 

I assume this hasn’t happened because these Type-A thrill-seekers get their kicks reffing NFL games on the weekends because, when they’re not working as contract attorneys and hedge fund managers, they feel irreplaceably grandfathered into America’s living rooms every given Sunday. 

This is a no-brainer. Replace these grandfathers. Let them get their weekend kicks skydiving, you know, like normal people and let normal people take their jobs. 

The integrity sports gambling requires, requires it. 

Put a buyer-beware disclaimer on all college bets 

Of course, when it comes to well-funded and high-profile major professional sports, concerns about the integrity of athletes, and even the officials, are of relatively minimal practical concern.  

College sports, on the other hand, tell an entirely different story. 

Ironically, the Supreme Court case that makes the college sports sphere so perilous for gambling isn’t 2018’s landmark New Jersey vs. NCAA, it’s the 2021 NCAA vs. Alston ruling, which paved the way for collegiate athletes to earn money through their name, image and likeness, aka, NIL. 

NIL will create more balance in college recruiting, as was on full display last fall when tiny HBC Jackson State snagged the top football recruit in the 2022 high school class amid rumors the amateur athlete was part of a $1.5 million NIL deal. Any school now could, theoretically, go to any booster or sponsor and get them to offer marketing contracts to persuade recruits. 

WATCH: Jackson State Head Coach Deion Sanders denies top recruit was part of $1.5 million NIL deal. 

Pay one 19-year-old money selling his name, image and likeness and give another work study swabbing floors in the student union and just see what happens. 

Point-shaving in college sports is nothing new and it will get worse with the advent of legalized gambling nationwide. It would be prudent of the industry to include buyer beware disclaimers on all college sports bets, and get out in front of the first crisis that’s going to face this burgeoning industry.