USA Law and Practice Contributed by: Irwin A. Kishner, Daniel A. Etna, Joel Wagman and Barry Werbin, Herrick, Feinstein LLP
• use of the substance or method violates the spirit of sport. Athletes are responsible for knowing what sub - stances and methods are considered banned by the Prohibited List. Under World Athletics Rules, the presence of a prohibited substance in an athlete’s sample, or the use of a prohibited substance or prohibited method, constitutes a doping offence. WADA’s Code provides a global framework for the anti-doping policies, rules, and regulations within sports organisations and among public authorities. USADA, the national anti-doping organisation in the USA for Olympic, Paralympic, Pan American, and Parapan Ameri - can sports, is a signatory to the Code. USADA is charged with managing the anti-doping pro - gramme including testing both in and out of competition. US Professional Sports Leagues With respect to individual sports leagues in the USA, doping matters are generally handled internally by the leagues. Each league, through collective bargaining with players’ associations, implements procedures and guidelines for the administration of drug testing and the determi - nation of banned substances. These procedures usually consist of collecting random blood or urine samples that are tested by an independ - ent laboratory. Punishments for taking banned substances often include fines and suspen - sions, but they can also include lifetime bans from the sport in some extreme cases. Pursu - ant to its recent collective bargaining agreement, the National Basketball Association (NBA) has removed marijuana from its drug testing pro - gramme. 1.2 Integrity In May 2018, the US Supreme Court struck down the federal Professional and Amateur
Sports Protection Act (PASPA), which had effec - tively prohibited individual states from legalising sports betting, with a few exemptions. The ruling provided a pathway for individual states to legal - ise sports gambling. Currently, 38 states, as well as the District of Columbia, have legalised sports betting, with many others introducing proposed legislation. With the legalisation of sports betting, there is an increased risk of match-fixing and in-play manipulation. The legislation that has emerged, however, generally does not include provisions criminalising match-fixing. In large part, both states and the federal government appear to be relying on existing penal code provisions to pre - serve the integrity of athletic competition. The Sports Bribery Act is the federal criminal law that targets the manipulation of athletic competi - tion. The act makes it a felony to “... influence, in any way, by bribery any sporting contest, with knowledge that the purpose of such scheme is to influence by bribery that contest” . This act does not cover other non-bribery con - cerns such as extortion, blackmail, tipping of inside information, or betting on games by someone who can affect the outcome. Some states have adopted legislation to address these issues, such as the West Virginia statute that criminalises, inter alia, making or changing wagers after acquiring inside information rel - evant to an athletic contest. See W. VA. CODE § 29-22D-21(b). Private sanctions for misconduct also exist. For example, one former NBA player was banned from the league for life in 2024 after a league probe found he disclosed confidential informa - tion to sports bettors, wagered on games and limited his own participation in one or more
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