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as a new nba As the season began this week, coach Rick Carlisle and the Indiana Pacers received their annual briefing on the do’s and don’ts when gambling.
Betting is generally permitted in casinos. Betting on other sports is also allowed, provided it is legal.
Betting on NBA basketball is not.
For veterans of the sport, this is the type of training that may seem routine – perhaps almost boring. But the potential consequences of breaking the rules are now abundantly clear portland Coach Chauncey Billups and Miami guard Terry Rozier were among nearly three dozen people cited by federal law enforcement officials for their involvement in various illegal gambling activities.
The development represents an unexpected challenge for a league that had hoped to get its season off to a strong start, as the opening night game was watched by millions as it went into a thrilling double overtime. Amazing performances have happened before: Victor Wembanyama Scored 40 points in his season debut with San Antonio, reigning MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander scored 55 points for Oklahoma City, Golden State’s Stephen Curry and Denver’s Aaron Gordon put on an I-can-top-this show.
Right now only those should be discussed in the league. It’s not like that. It is all overshadowed. The NBA now faces questions about the prevalence of gambling in basketball and uncertainty about what might happen next.
“A shocking day,” said Carlisle, who said he tried unsuccessfully to connect with Billups to offer support. “This is a very serious situation.”
Allegations against Rozier and Billups
Rozier, who was arrested orlandoFlorida, where the Heat open the season against the Magic, is accused of telling an associate that he was going to play sober in a game on March 23, 2023, when he was with the Charlotte Hornets. Rozier played just under 10 minutes and fell well short of many of the lines set for prop bets regarding his performance.
Based on information shared by Rozier, federal officials said more than $200,000 worth of bets were won.
Billups – a Hall of Fame player – was arrested in Lake Oswego, Oregon, and accused of being involved in a poker scheme that federal authorities said defrauded victims out of at least $7 million. Billups was one of 31 people arrested on poker-related charges, and according to authorities, some of those arrested were members of three mafia families.
The indictments for the insider betting and poker cases were separate, but it appears that Billups was also mentioned in the betting – even if not by name. Someone who matched the resume of Billups, an Oregon native who played in the NBA from 1997 to 2014 and has coached since 2021, was accused of passing insider information to someone who used it to place bets involving a Trail Blazers game in 2023.
That person is described only as co-conspirator 8 in that document.
Billups and Rozier appeared in court on Thursday and were ruled out of the league indefinitely, just hours after their arrests when the NBA placed them on leave. An attorney for Billups called his client an “honest man,” while an attorney for Rozier said the player is “not a gambler” and “is eager to win this fight.”
In a statement, the NBA said it “takes these allegations extremely seriously, and the integrity of our game remains our top priority.”
Betting is big in pro sports
Yet betting has become big business for the NBA, as it has for nearly all pro sports leagues in this era, where betting on games is legal in most parts of the country. The practice is now allowed in some form in 38 states. missouri It will join that list later this year, and is also allowed in the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico.
“It’s a world that was a different world a few years ago with the advent of legalized gambling,” Carlisle said.
Some leaders of the League encouraged the development of legalized gambling. In 2014, NBA Commissioner Adam Silver wrote an op-ed in The New York Times that noted a “thriving underground business” of illegal sports gambling that “operates free of regulation or oversight.” He called for a “different approach”.
The 2018 Supreme Court decision finally cleared the way for the modern era of legalized sports gambling. Today, the NBA has two official gaming partners, FanDuel and DraftKings Sportsbook, and has relationships with at least 12 authorized gaming operators. The NBA also has a section of its website dedicated to gambling – NBABet.
As gambling has become legalized, Silver has expressed some concerns about its effects.
“Obviously, I’m very concerned if there is any illegal activity going on in our league,” he said in July. “But I would say that the way the public financial markets work, the fact that there can be insider trading doesn’t mean that you’re necessarily going to shut down those public markets. Often the way they are catching insider traders is because they have a system, a complex system, that detects unusual behavior.”
“But,” he added, “anyone in this league, any player who engages in that activity, there is no doubt that they are putting their livelihood at risk.”
Golden State coach Steve Kerr said an unfortunate reality for players and coaches in this betting era is that fans — often angry, sometimes sitting courtside — arrive to complain that this or that happened and they lost their bet or parlay.
Kerr has also received emails from people who want to complain about someone they believe personally embezzled their money.
“Our guys get nasty social media posts from people betting on the game,” Kerr said. “And that’s the thing I don’t like most about it. Our players shouldn’t have to deal with this, but they do. … It’s just like modern life.”
Billups’ arrest dealt a blow to the Denver Nuggets. Chauncey’s brother Rodney Billups is a member of Denver’s coaching staff.
Michael Porter Jr. was with the Nuggets in 2024 when his brother, Toronto Raptors player Jontay Porter, was banned for life after a league investigation into allegations he disclosed confidential information to sports bettors and placed bets on games – sometimes even betting on the Raptors to lose.
There have been other investigations since then, but none quite like the one the NBA is handling now.
“This is not how we want to start the season in the NBA,” Nuggets coach David Edelman said.
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