Leave it to Draymond Green of the Golden State Warriors to create a huge controversy.
To his credit, Green had no intention of making such a situation but he’s currently at the center of a major sports betting scandal.
It all revolves around his performance – or lack thereof – on Sunday night when his teammate Klay Thompson returned to the NBA.
Green’s injury and lack of playing have made a lot of people a lot of money – and has made a lot of people angry too.
The Scandal
Green only played for seven seconds on Sunday night because of tightness in his lower calf.
As you’d expect, he was slated to start for the Warriors – and he still did – but he quickly left the court before the game really got started in earnest.
If it were any other game, Green wouldn’t have played at all and would have been on the bench all game.
But he wanted to start alongside Thompson, who was returning to the league after being sidelined for years because of injuries.
Wow, respect to Draymond Green to ruins his per game average by playing 1 second this game just to honor Klay Thompson! pic.twitter.com/hRc6xEEMTz
— Per Sources (@PerSources) January 10, 2022
Green was trying to be supportive and part of the big moment and no one can fault him for that.
The only problem is this kind-hearted move has had huge ripples through the sports betting world.
That’s because the Warriors official public relations Twitter posted that Green would be on the court for the game, but only the tipoff.
That Twitter post went live at 8:31 PM, while tipoff was at 8:40.
Immediately after the news broke, online bettors rushed to their respective betting sites to get bets in on the under for Green.
It makes total sense: if it was guaranteed that Green wasn’t going to score any points or rebounds or assists, taking the under was an easy way to make some cash.
A lot of people were racking up a lot of money very fast and technically they did nothing wrong – but some betting sites weren’t having it.
The Pushback
Some betting agencies, such as FanDuel, took down all the Green props the moment the Warriors announced he would only “play” for the tipoff.
Other sites weren’t as fast and the damage was already done with thousands of people making major bets on Green.
Several sites paid out the bets that were made.
This was due to the fact that they didn’t have to pay too many people because they were fast to take Green off the site.
However, some sites weren’t releasing the won funds so quickly.
DraftKings released a statement saying that bets on Green from that game were “under review and bet settlements are currently on holding pending an investigation.”
But that led to a huge uproar from users and just a day later, DraftKings changed their tune and said they would pay the wins.
“DraftKings will be grading all Draymond Green under markets as winners and issuing cash refunds for all bets on Draymond Green over markets. Customers will see settlement and crediting happening by the end of today.” — DK spokesperson
— David Payne Purdum (@DavidPurdum) January 11, 2022
Overall, it is estimated that DraftKings paid out more than $1 million on the Green prop bets.
The entire situation was a huge mess but, based solely on rules, the bettors did nothing wrong: they saw an opportunity and they took advantage of it.
NEXT: Andrew Wiggins Is Finally Living Up To The Hype
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