David Purdum
David Purdum is a sports betting reporter at ESPN, covering the gambling industry across professional and collegiate sports. He focuses on how wagering shapes the business of sports, league policy and the integrity of games, anchoring the masthead’s dedicated sports betting coverage. His work appears in ESPN’s sports betting vertical and on its daily sports betting news program, where he explains odds, market moves and industry stories to a broad audience. He has covered the sports betting industry since 2008 and joined ESPN in 2014, bringing long-tenured expertise to a rapidly changing beat.
Sports betting industry and policy
Purdum’s core lane is the structure and regulation of the sports betting business, from sportsbooks and prediction markets to league and government oversight. He reports on how major North American leagues respond to the growth of betting, including joint calls from the NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL and MLS to address threats directed at players and officials by bettors.
His coverage tracks political and regulatory pressure on the industry, such as congressional scrutiny of MLB’s policies following public betting-related incidents involving Bryce Harper. He examines new market models like Kalshi and other prediction markets, explaining how they blur lines between traditional financial products and sports wagering and what that means for regulators and sportsbooks.
Across these stories he treats sports betting as an industry in its own right, connecting business decisions, legal frameworks and public policy rather than focusing only on picks and point spreads.
Integrity investigations and gambling scandals
A defining feature of Purdum’s work is sustained coverage of integrity issues, where betting intersects with potential corruption, match-fixing and disciplinary action.
He works closely with ESPN’s investigative unit on major gambling stories, including high-profile cases involving Alabama baseball, former NBA player Jontay Porter, Detroit Lions suspensions and wagering investigations around Iowa and Iowa State athletics. His reporting on MLB’s Clase-Ortiz pitch‑rigging indictments details how alleged manipulated pitches were tied to betting markets and how the league responded with nationwide limits on certain proposition bets. He covers federal investigations and criminal cases involving players, such as indictments of former NBA players Malik Beasley and Ed Davis linked to gambling activity.
Purdum also reports on the broader ecosystem around these incidents, documenting how leagues, unions and regulators attempt to protect athletes and officials from gambling-related threats and to uphold competitive integrity.
Markets, odds and bettor behavior
Purdum regularly explains how betting markets react to individual athletes and events, highlighting the link between on-field performance, public perception and wagering volume. Recent work has examined how figures like Bronny James and Paul Skenes influence betting markets, using their rise to show how sportsbooks price hype, uncertainty and future potential. He writes about prediction markets and innovative betting products, helping readers understand line moves, liquidity and the risk management strategies of bookmakers. His long-running interest in the “characters and stories” of sports betting includes coverage of huge bets, notable wins and losses, and recurring themes such as “bad beats,” drawing on a network of sources that ranges from regulated bookmakers in Las Vegas and the UK to underground bookies, gamblers, attorneys and league executives.
Background on the gambling beat
Purdum came to the gambling beat from a traditional newspaper sports background, then shifted to write exclusively about sports betting as legal and cultural interest in wagering expanded. He closely followed New Jersey’s court battles with the sports leagues over sports betting, covering the case and its implications for ESPN and other outlets as it moved toward the Supreme Court decision that reshaped the U.S. market. His past work includes profiling professional sports bettor Billy Walters and contributing to ESPN’s investigative and feature programming, as well as appearances discussing betting issues on shows like Outside the Lines and external television segments.
Beyond ESPN, his reporting and analysis on sports gambling have appeared in publications such as Sporting News, Sports Business Journal and UPI, reinforcing his position as a specialist voice on the sports betting industry rather than a general sports reporter.
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