It was inevitable that a major professional sports team would once again be ensnared in a high-profile criminal matter involving gambling.
Last week, the National Basketball Association, the premier professional basketball league in the world, was rocked by the news that an active head coach, Chauncey Billups, and an active player, Terry Rozier, were allegedly involved in an illegal gambling operation. A former coach who maintains relationships around the league was also arrested and charged with gambling-related fraud.
The charges fell into two buckets. The first involved Billups, who was allegedly involved with a rigged poker game run by the mafia that featured a number of celebrity players. The second was far more serious, at least as far as the NBA is concerned. Rozier and former NBA player and coach Damon Jones were arrested and charged with aiding in the rigging of sports bets. Jones allegedly passed along proprietary injury information to individuals who made bets prior to the public release of said information. Rozier, meanwhile, is accused of engaging in a scheme in which he took himself out of a game to intentionally influence his stat line due to bets that had been placed by associates of his.
STOP GIVING CREDIBILITY TO THESE GAMBLING APPS
If it all sounds like a stereotypical case of sports gambling corruption, that’s because it is. As much as we like to think of American sports as a crucible of physical and mental fortitude, it has been marred by scandals and corruption for as long as it has existed. In 1919, several players on the Chicago White Sox were accused of throwing the World Series. The MLB’s all-time hits leader, Pete Rose, was banned for life for placing bets on baseball games in the 1980s. In 2007, NBA referee Tim Donaghy was arrested and convicted for betting on games that he officiated. That same year, Rick Tocchet, then an NHL assistant coach, pleaded guilty to gambling-related charges. Tocchet was eventually allowed to return to the bench and currently coaches the Vancouver Canucks.
But today, the sports gambling landscape is different. Sports betting had been illegal in most states, including when Donaghy and Rose were jailed and banned, respectively. From 1992 to 2018, thanks to a federal law, sports betting was only legal in Nevada. Today, it is legal in 38 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico, thanks to a 2018 Supreme Court decision that struck down the 1992 law.
But the legal landscape is not the only thing that has changed. Thanks to the internet and smartphones, placing a bet is simply a matter of downloading an app, depositing money, and making your pick. It can be done practically anywhere at any time, on practically any sport. Sports leagues and sports media advertise and promote sports betting, tempting fans everywhere with the possibility that their knowledge about sports will win them money.
Last week’s arrests took place amid this backdrop. Sports betting is now enmeshed in sports culture. Casual sports fans are now well versed in the intricacies of betting lines and odds. And while leagues impose harsh restrictions on gambling among their players, officials, and staff, the uncomfortable truth is that scandals are only going to increase in regularity.
While professional sports leagues did not create the cultural crisis brought on by the widespread expansion of sports betting, they have exacerbated it. The decision to embrace sponsorships from sportsbooks, encourage on-site gambling, among other things, has encouraged the growth of sports betting and thus raised the risk that players, coaches, and staff will be tempted to use their positions to influence outcomes and profit from it.
But beyond the organizational effects, the ubiquity of sports betting has also changed the way that fans consume and engage with sports. It gives fans “extra skin in the game” but also raises the risks of a highly emotional negative reaction when things don’t go their way.
It is at this point that I must confess that I am, to some extent, part of the problem. I have a sportsbook app on my phone. On NFL Sundays, I will occasionally place small-dollar wagers. Some are successful, others are not. But I am extraordinarily proud of the fact that I have not added any money to the account in more than two years.
The scale of sports betting is staggering. FanDuel, which markets itself as “America’s No. 1 sportsbook,” reported in 2025 that it has 17 million customers across all 50 states. DraftKings, another popular sportsbook, reported an average of 3.3 million active monthly users during the second quarter of 2025, which, notably, is outside of football season, when betting is elevated. All told, the U.S. sports betting industry generated $13.7 billion in revenue in 2024.
While many people can and do play the betting lines on a temperate basis, the ease of access has also led to gambling addictions.
In 2024, the Athletic shared the story of one Jordan Holt, a Yuma, Arizona, resident who decided to put his sports knowledge to the test and downloaded a gambling app. According to the article, he, “within weeks, had turned his $100 initial deposit into $600. He started dreaming big.”
Holt’s big dreams were quickly dashed. He quickly lost the modest profit he had made and then started chasing his losses. The full article is a heartbreaking account of a spiraling disaster that buried Holt and his family in tens of thousands of dollars in debt. All told, Holt lost $110,000. His annual income was $120,000.
Holt’s story is not a unique one, even though it represents a more extreme case. States that have legalized mobile sports betting have consistently reported exponential increases in calls to their gambling help hotlines.
The ease of access to gambling that the era of mobile apps has brought is unprecedented. Prior to the advent of the pocket casino, gambling required a physical trip to a brick-and-mortar casino or sportsbook. Such trips were rare and carried with them a sort of social stigma that generally discouraged them, except for on the odd vacation or bachelor party.
Those physical and social obstacles to wagering have often been the primary guardrails that prevent a would-be gambling addict from falling into the spiral that Holt found himself in. Those guardrails are gone. Today, a gambling addict is a few taps of his phone screen away from economic disaster.
This is a societal problem as much as it is an individual vice. A gambling addict who bankrupts his family is more likely to fall into substance abuse and suicide, while the family that relies on a gambling addict is more likely to require welfare assistance, thus burdening the taxpayer and society at large.
At a bare minimum, the physical obstacles to gambling must be restored. Going to an in-person sportsbook or casino to place a wager can restore the level of effort and stigma that will make gambling problems far less common, even if it won’t eliminate them entirely.
NBA STARS, COACH AMONG 31 ARRESTED IN FBI SPORTS BETTING CRACKDOWN
But beyond that, policymakers should take a serious look at implementing additional barriers. For instance, implementing income requirements for bets above a certain amount per month, or requiring a credit score of a certain level before someone can spend their savings on a sportsbook. Gambling companies have no incentive to prevent the economic and social destitution that results from addictions.
After all, no matter how much you think you know about the average points per game scored by Kevin Durant, the passing or rushing yards that the New York Jets defense gives up, or the number of touchdowns that Saquon Barkley averages per game, the house always wins.
