When New Jersey Assemblymember Dan Hutchison talks about sports betting, he doesn’t sound like a distant policymaker. He sounds like someone who sees the human fallout every day. As a bankruptcy attorney, Hutchison says he regularly meets clients whose weekend bets on football or baseball spiral into missed car payments, delinquent mortgages, and eventually, bankruptcy filings.
“The reality of what’s going on is painful,” Hutchison said. “They don’t make it seem like that when they’re doing these commercials during the football games. It looks normal, like everybody does it. But I deal with the other side.”
Hutchison’s biggest worry is the surge of live, in-game betting, sometimes called “micro betting,” where fans can place dozens or even hundreds of wagers in a single game. “They’re betting on the next pitch, the next play, and it’s constant,” he said. “There’s no pause. It’s just not healthy.”
Now, he’s introducing legislation to ban New Jersey gambling licensees from offering live bets on individual plays during sporting events.
The debate Hutchison is raising isn’t just about local policy. It’s part of a growing national conversation about proposition bets, or “prop bets,” a form of wagering that has exploded in popularity with fans but triggered alarm among regulators and sports leagues.
In states like Florida, sports expert Russell Simmons has already weighed in, highlighting the best Florida betting sites list that gives players legal options. According to Simmons, bettors in the Sunshine State can still find a wide range of markets and huge bonuses, but the tight regulatory structure shows how states are trying to balance demand with oversight.
That contrast highlights the uncertainty across the country. Unlike bets on game outcomes or point spreads, prop bets zero in on specific plays or players: the number of touchdowns a quarterback throws, the first team to score, or even offbeat trivia like the color of Gatorade poured over a coach. While popular, these bets are often flagged as easier to manipulate and a source of harassment for athletes who don’t meet gamblers’ expectations.
Critics argue that prop bets put both players and fans in jeopardy. From an integrity standpoint, a single athlete could more easily influence the outcome of a prop bet, like missing a free throw or throwing a single pitch, compared to the outcome of an entire game.
And then there’s the consumer side. Prop bets, especially live micro bets, multiply the number of opportunities to wager, raising the risk of compulsive behavior. Hutchison says he sees the ripple effects first-hand, including financial collapse and even fears of suicide among overextended gamblers.
The Council on Compulsive Gambling of New Jersey says its hotline calls have jumped nearly 300% since legal sports betting launched in 2018. In a July statement, executive director Luis Del Orbe said live betting poses unique risks. “By limiting the proliferation of micro betting, this legislation takes an essential step toward protecting citizens from the harmful effects of reckless gambling practices,” he said.
Hutchison’s proposal isn’t happening in a vacuum. At least 15 states already ban prop bets on college sports, according to the American Gaming Association (AGA). Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, a Republican, has gone further, calling for the nation’s first outright ban on all professional sports prop bets.
“The harm to athletes and the integrity of the game is clear, and the benefits are not worth the harm,” DeWine said this summer, after suspicious wagers flagged two Cleveland Guardians pitchers for investigation. “The prop betting experiment in this country has failed badly.”
While Ohio regulators continue investigating that case, the call for restrictions is resonating across leagues. NBA officials, MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred, and NCAA President Charlie Baker have all urged states to crack down on certain bets. Baker noted that one in three high-profile college athletes report receiving abusive messages from gamblers, with women’s basketball players targeted at nearly three times the rate of men’s players.
The gambling industry isn’t sitting idly by. The AGA argues that banning prop bets won’t stop them, it will just drive wagering underground to illegal offshore platforms, where consumers lack protections.
Joe Maloney, the group’s senior vice president of communications, said the system is working as designed. “The Ohio incident is actually evidence that regulated gambling works: it detects potential misconduct, it reports it, and it helps hold bad actors accountable,” he said.
For sportsbooks, prop bets, aside for being moneymakers, are also a fan engagement tool. Maloney said bettors want to feel connected to their favorite players by wagering on whether a star will notch a touchdown or a clutch 3-pointer. “It increases a fan’s engagement with the game they love,” he said. “Eliminating that legal market doesn’t prevent the activity–it just moves it into the shadows.”
Still, sports leagues aren’t rejecting restrictions outright. Instead, they’re lobbying for targeted bans on the riskiest bets.
Major League Soccer convinced Illinois regulators to block bets on penalty cards, while the NFL successfully pushed for bans on wagers tied to officiating assignments, player injuries, or the very first play of a game. “There are certain types of bets that strike me as unnecessary and particularly vulnerable,” Manfred told reporters this summer.
David Highhill, the NFL’s vice president for sports betting, echoed that message: “Things like ‘will this kicker miss a field goal’ are wagers we’ve worked to ensure aren’t offered. They raise integrity risks and add limited fan engagement.”
The backdrop to this debate is the staggering rise of legal sports betting since the Supreme Court’s 2018 decision to strike down a federal ban. Gambling is now legal in 38 states and Washington, D.C., with Missouri set to join in December. Americans are projected to wager around $30 billion on the NFL season alone, according to the AGA.
That rapid growth has brought with it new headaches. Stephen Shapiro, a University of South Carolina professor who researches gambling, says the pace of legalization has far outstripped the creation of consumer protections. “The speed at which gambling has been marketed and legalized in this country is way faster than guardrails have been set,” he said.
Shapiro said Ohio’s proposed ban could mark a “big step,” but acknowledged that fierce opposition from the industry and fans is inevitable. “They’re very popular. They’re arguably as–if not more–popular than betting on just individual games,” he said. “So I think there’ll be some backlash. But I also think over the next few years … there’s going to be an appetite for setting guardrails.”
