Table tennis is the fourth-biggest attraction for Oregon sports gamblers, behind professional basketball, professional football and professional baseball.
PORTLAND, Ore. — Sports betting is booming in Oregon, but it's not just on NFL football and NBA basketball: Oregonians are also betting millions of dollars on obscure ping-pong matches in Eastern Europe.
Table tennis has become one of the most popular sports for gamblers in Oregon: Oregonians bet $57 million on table tennis in 2023, up from $18.5 million in 2022, according to data provided by the Oregon Lottery through a public records request.
Table tennis is the fourth-largest sport for sports bettors in Oregon, behind professional basketball, football and baseball, and is the subject of more bets than professional tennis, soccer, hockey, mixed martial arts and golf.
“There are three different live matches going on right now,” said Dr. Ken Pendleton, a professor at the University of Oregon's Warsaw sports marketing program, as he scrolled through the DraftKings sports betting app.
Matches take place 24 hours a day, with new matches starting every few minutes. Unlike other sports, there is nearly constant action. Matches don't last long, and betting lines change rapidly during the game.
“This is like the crack cocaine of sports betting,” Pendleton said.
In 2023, 890,000 single bets have been placed on table tennis in Oregon, up from 254,000 in 2022. So far this year, 617,000 bets have been placed on the sport.
One of the biggest bets in table tennis took place on February 2, 2023. A sports bettor in Oregon placed $35,000 on a match between two relatively unknown players in a drab gymnasium in Poland. The 14-minute match took place at 10:30 a.m. local time, 1:30 a.m. in Oregon. The bet was successful, cashing out $41,000.
The average bet per round on table tennis was $66, compared with $24 on NFL football, $34 on Major League Baseball and $41 on NBA basketball.
The games are streamed on YouTube and betting platforms like DraftKings. There are no announcers or fans. They usually take place in bare gyms, with a single scorekeeper manually flipping through numbers. The players are some young, some old, and of all skill levels.
“It's not the highest level. I think it's club level. They're serious players, but they're nowhere near the national team,” said Sean O'Neill, a two-time Olympian and U.S. Table Tennis Hall of Famer.
O'Neill explained that betting on table tennis soared during the pandemic when other sports worlds were shut down. Since then, a slew of new leagues and tournaments have sprung up, mostly based in Eastern Europe, with the sole aim of providing gamblers with competitive matches.
“These guys are playing 24/7,” O'Neill said. “The reason games are being played at 3, 4, 5 in the morning is because they're being broadcast to the betting community. Bettors want the next game.”
Table tennis's popularity isn't limited to Oregon sports bettors: In Colorado, table tennis attracted $107 million in bets across all sportsbooks in 2023.
The rise of table tennis gambling nationwide has not been without its troubles. In June 2020, authorities in New Jersey and Colorado temporarily suspended betting on table tennis matches over concerns about possible match fixing in Ukraine.
Most of the table tennis matches offered by the Oregon Lottery through DraftKings are the Poland-based International Table Tennis Series or TT Elite Series. The TT Series has never been flagged as suspicious activity before.
The TT Series website claims that players are prohibited from gambling and that safeguards are in place to prevent match fixing.
“These games are real. The players want to win. They don't know what the odds are when they're playing,” O'Neill explained.
The Oregon Lottery said it is working with Integrity Monitoring Services along with DraftKings to monitor table tennis for suspicious gambling activity.
“While we are aware of notifications of suspicious gambling activity being reported in multiple jurisdictions, we have not identified any suspicious gambling activity in our jurisdiction,” explained Oregon Lottery spokesperson Melanie Meszaros. “If such activity is discovered, we have procedures in place to investigate and take action.”
The Oregon Lottery began taking bets on table tennis through its Scoreboard app in March 2020 and has since moved all sports betting to DraftKings. Monthly data obtained through public records requests shows the state has never lost money on table tennis.
The researchers suggest that people who bet on table tennis are drawn to the fast, sequential action that's similar to video poker or slot machines, and the Oregon Lottery helps satisfy those gamblers' appetites with anonymous table tennis matches played throughout the day and night, they added.
“The data shows that bookmakers in Oregon, DraftKings and other states are making a lot of money off this, and it does seem like there's a problem,” Pendleton said.
The Oregon Lottery acknowledges that it doesn't encourage betting on table tennis, as it does on other sports.
“The less attention the better,” Pendleton said. “If you don't need to advertise because people are going to be there anyway and you're going to have more regulatory scrutiny, it makes sense not to draw unnecessary attention to it.”
