Shocked, shocked.
On Thursday, the National Basketball Association was hit with a gambling scandal. New York federal prosecutor Joseph Nocella said it is “one of the most brazen sports corruption schemes since online sports betting became widely legalized in the United States.”
Miami Heat player Terry Rozier was arrested for allegedly sharing inside information about player injuries that bettors could use to win big. He’s also accused of telling gamblers in 2023 that he would fake an injury to leave a game early, allowing them to make sure-thing bets on the “under” in an over/under wager on Rozier’s total points in the game.
Portland Trail Blazers coach Chauncey Billups was charged for allegedly conspiring in a plot to lure poker players into games with marked cards and high-tech cheating, fleecing the marks out of a total of at least $7 million. The crooked card games were allegedly run by organized crime families.
Damon Jones, formerly a player and assistant coach with the Cleveland Cavaliers, was also arrested, charged with texting an unidentified gambler to relate that LeBron James would miss a game against the Milwaukee Bucks due to an injury that had not yet been publicly reported. “Get a big bet on Milwaukee tonight before the information is out!,” he allegedly wrote in the message.
More than two dozen others were also charged in connection with the gambling schemes.
States have been able to legalize gambling on sports since 2018, when the U.S. Supreme Court overturned a federal ban on sports betting. According to the American Gaming Association, a trade group for the legal gambling industry, commercial sports betting in America brought in $13.71 billion in revenue in 2024, breaking the $11.04 billion record set in 2023.
This year, sports betting revenue in the U.S. hit $10 billion through August.
What did everybody think was going to happen when sports betting became a multi-billion industry? Did they think the players and coaches could never be corrupted because their salaries were so high that they’d never need the money?
The problem with gambling is that some people have a problem with gambling. It doesn’t matter how much money an athlete makes. A gambling problem can overtake any income. Big paychecks, big bets, big debts. Then vulnerability to pressure, and an otherwise inexplicable willingness to take potentially career-ending risks.
In 2024, now-former Toronto Raptors forward Jontay Porter pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud after he admitted taking himself out of games to let gamblers win proposition bets. Porter was banned from the NBA for life.
“The scheme that ensnared Porter was fairly simple,” Sports Illustrated reported in February. “He amassed significant gambling debts, and he repaid them by sabotaging his own performance.”
And that’s the answer to those who say the players and coaches didn’t need the money from gambling schemes and wouldn’t have risked their careers and reputations to participate in them. Gamblers, over the long term, lose a lot of money, and not always to the nicest people.
It’s obviously easy to affect the outcome of a basketball game by faking an injury, point-shaving, or calling fouls on key players at key moments. In 2007, NBA referee Tim Donaghy resigned from the league following reports of an FBI investigation into allegations that he bet on games he was officiating, shared information with gamblers and made calls during the games to affect the point spread. He later pleaded guilty to felonies: conspiracy to commit wire fraud and transmitting wagering information. He was sentenced to 15 years in federal prison.
“We take these allegations with the utmost seriousness, and the integrity of our game remains our top priority,” the NBA said in a statement released Thursday.
Good luck with that. The best hope for the integrity of the game would be to have so many people cheating at the same time that it would genuinely be impossible to predict the outcome.
There’s just too much money in sports betting to ensure integrity in sports. Do you know how much was spent campaigning for and against two rival ballot measures in 2022 that would have legalized sports betting in California? Would you believe $200 million? No? You’re right. It was $575 million.
How much money do teams receive in advertising revenue from gaming companies? By one estimate, $4.2 billion annually will flow from gambling industry advertising and sponsorships to the NBA, National Football League, Major League Baseball and National Hockey League combined.
How much tax revenue does California collect every year from tribal casinos? In 2023, almost $6 billion. How much more would be generated if the state legalized sports betting?
Gambling on sports was once a crime but now it’s a growing business that pretends human beings will perform like lab rats, as if they don’t know or see the odds, the point spreads and the proposition bets happening just outside the glass walls of their cages.
For athletes with a gambling problem, the experiment will not end well.
Write Susan@SusanShelley.com and follow her on X @Susan_Shelley