Chauncey Billups, basketball Hall of Famer and current coach of the Portland Trail Blazers, and Terry Rozier, member of the Miami Heat, have each been arrested this morning by the feds on charges relating to illegal gambling, per multiple reports.
Remarkably, the arrests are related to separate investigations — Billups is charged in connection with “an illegal poker operation tied to the Mafia,” per ABC. Rozier — who was a DNP-CD in the Heat opener last night — appears to have been charged in connection with a March, 2023, game between the Hornets and Pelicans where there was suspicious activity relating to prop bets involving Rozier. The bets involved taking the “under” on Rozier’s points, rebounds and assists in the game, in which Rozier only played 10 minutes before leaving due to a purported injury.
The Rozier investigation has previously resulted in multiple convictions, including that of former NBA player Jontay Porter, who the NBA has banned for prop bet gambling schemes.
These are just the latest gambling scandals to hit the U.S. sports scene of late, although they involve two separate tiers, if you will, of seriousness.
Billups being arrested in connection with a poker ring is a problem for the NBA, though one not necessarily directly impacting the integrity of the game. Many professional athletes gamble, and it is generally allowed so long as it does not involve their sport or league. The NBA, in particular, has a culture of gambling among players, with Michael Jordan, of course, being one of the most notorious examples of a player who would engage in high stakes private wagers.
The fact that Billups was arrested in connection with a poker ring with mob connections would suggest, though, that he was not just a participant in some card games, but was perhaps more involved in the operation of games. This has nothing directly to do with the games Billups is involved in. That’s not to say that such a situation couldn’t lead to such — large gambling debts can be used as leverage to try to get a player to throw a game, and Pete Rose’s betting on baseball was, by some reports, an effort to make up the losses he had gambling in other sports — but there isn’t that direct initial nexus.
On the other hand, the Rozier case is something that does directly impact the integrity of the game, as it involves a player purposely not performing. And with the proliferation of prop bets, it is much easier for a player to control the outcome of the bet than in the more traditional instance of fixing, when the result is based on the team covering or not covering.
Suspicions regarding prop bets is what has led to Guardians pitchers Emmanuel Clase and Luis Ortiz being placed on administrative leave this summer. They remain on administrative leave, and Clase has been denied permission by the Guardians to pitch in the Venezuelan Winter League after being banned by the Dominican Winter League.
The proliferation of legal gambling, and the ease with which bets can now be placed, has raised concerns about scandals such as these becoming more common. Prop bets can make it more palatable for a player to agree to a fix — after all, they aren’t throwing the game or trying to make their team lose. In the instances that Clase and Ortiz are under investigation for, the bets in question reportedly involved the first pitch they threw would be a ball or strike.
The potential for abuse with individual player prop bets has led to discussion about whether they should be banned. For gambling entities, however, the prop bets are a big money-maker that allows them to continue to take action once a game has started, keeping the better engaged and making for bigger profits for the bookmaking entities. The legal nature of the business also allows for more transparency and easier monitoring of betting patterns, which allows for suspicious betting patterns to be flagged.
Legal sports gambling isn’t going anywhere, because there’s too much money being made off of it by the leagues, teams, and bookmaking entities. And as long as there has been gambling on sporting events, there have been those looking to get an edge through a fix, and participants in the games who are willing to participate in a fix for the right incentive.
So this is unlikely to be the last story like this we see.