A bad bet should never be the reason why professional athletes face issues. However, that is becoming an increasingly serious and documented concern across basketball. So much so that the NBA, WNBA, and their respective players’ and coaches’ associations are now demanding that state gaming regulators take significantly stronger action against the betting-related harassment and threats being directed at athletes, coaches, officials, and their families.
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As reported by Front Office Sports’ Colin Salao, the NBA, WNBA, and their affiliated associations have sent a formal letter to state gambling regulators, informing them of the scale of the problem and making specific recommendations for regulatory action.
“On behalf of the NBA and WNBA-affiliated basketball community, we write to echo the calls for regulatory action in the September 15 letter you received from the NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL, and MLS and their players’ associations,” the letter read.
“We urge you to take steps that will better protect athletes, game participants, and their families from betting-related harassment and related threats.”
“Members of our organizations are facing a marked increase in betting-related harassment and threats, typically from angry bettors who are on the wrong side of a particular wager. This conduct ranges from shouted harassment in an arena or on the street to violent threats conveyed online or on social media.”
This letter was a follow-up to a broader mid-September push by the NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL, and MLS alongside their players’ associations.
The initial letter sent on September 15 urged regulators to permanently revoke betting privileges for anyone verified to have threatened or harassed players, coaches, officials, or personnel.
However, the WNBA did not like the fact that they were left out of that memo, with WNBPA executive director Terri Carmichael Jackson saying they were “deeply disappointed.”
So this time the joint letter included the WNBA, where they also requested that state gaming commissions turn proactive monitoring for such behaviour into a rule for sportsbooks maintaining their operating licences. It also calls for the implementation of a shared sportsbook exclusion list across all legal wagering states, a unified database designed to prevent individuals issued lifetime bans in one jurisdiction from simply opening accounts elsewhere.
While the measures may not eliminate the problem, if implemented properly, they could go a meaningful way toward reducing the frequency and severity of these incidents by creating real, consequential deterrents.
This 2026 WNBA season alone has produced several deeply troubling examples of this behaviour. Chicago Sky guard Natasha Cloud has been among the most vocal in calling out the behaviour.
The veteran revealed that she routinely receives threats on her life and racial slurs in her DMs from bettors who lose money. Unfortunately, in the WNBA, online harassment has even moved beyond betting.
Las Vegas Aces star Chelsea Gray shared her experience in July. Gray publicly shared a screenshot of a user sending her severe racial slurs. She posted it publicly on her Instagram story.
“People act like we just make this s— up.”
Gray received the message following their second game of the season with the Indiana Fever, where Gray bumped into Clark, sending her to the hardwood. Clark sprang up and protested, but the foul wasn’t called.
In Gray’s case, social media users quickly jumped to her defense and ultimately tracked down the user who had sent the text to the Aces’ star, and then reported it to their employer.
That employer was Hilton Grand Vacations. The company then took swift action, terminating the employee and releasing a public statement confirming his departure, noting that his behaviour was a direct violation of multiple company policies and did not reflect their values.
This is precisely the kind of consequential accountability that the WNBA and its partner leagues are pushing for, formalised and enforced through state gaming regulation rather than relying on the goodwill of internet vigilantes or individual employers.
If those consequences can be systematically embedded into the infrastructure, the deterrent effect could be significant. The players and coaches who are living with this reality every day deserve nothing less.