What’s next in NBA gambling scandal? Billups’ future, HOF status up in the air

Directly after the Golden State Warriors’ 137-131 overtime win against the Denver Nuggets on Thursday, “Inside The NBA” aired on ESPN. The show did not begin with a discussion of the thrilling game that had just concluded, nor the one that preceded it, the Oklahoma City Thunder’s 141-135 overtime win against the Indiana Pacers. “We’ll get to the highlights of those two games in just a bit,” Ernie Johnson told viewers. For the next 11-plus minutes, the topic was the gambling scandal that has become the biggest story in the NBA.

That morning, the FBI announced that more than 30 people had been charged in two separate but related criminal investigations. Terry Rozier of the Miami Heat and Damon Jones, a former Cleveland Cavaliers player and assistant coach, were among the six people arrested for their alleged roles in a sports-betting conspiracy. Chauncey Billups, the head coach of the Portland Trail Blazers and a Hall of Fame player best known for his tenure with the Detroit Pistons, was among the 31 people arrested for their alleged roles in a scheme to rig illegal poker games with ties to organized crime.

This story is not going away anytime soon. What’s next? 

1. What could happen to Billups and Rozier?

Both are facing serious criminal charges. Billups is scheduled to appear in Eastern District Court in Brooklyn on Nov. 24. Rozier agreed to appear at the same federal courthouse on Dec. 8.

The NBA placed both Billups and Rozier on leave on Thursday, and the Trail Blazers named Tiago Splitter interim head coach. It is significant that, while Billups was charged in only one of the two indictments, he appears to be implicated in both cases. The federal government has alleged that a person it is calling “Co-Conspirator 8” — a resident of Oregon, an NBA player from approximately 1997 through 2014 and a coach since at least 2021 — told Eric Earnest (a defendant in both cases) before the information was public that the Trail Blazers would be sitting their best players in a game on March 23, and that this conversation led to bets against the Blazers totaling more than $100,000.

According to the NBA constitution, the commissioner has the authority to permanently ban any coach who “directly or indirectly” discloses confidential or non-public information related to the team or the league “to any individual or entity, under circumstances where the person knows or should know that such individual or entity intends to use such information in connection with wagering money or anything of value on any game or event in the Association or in the NBA G League.”

In April 2024, following a league investigation, the NBA banned Jontay Porter, having concluded that he bet on NBA games, disclosed confidential information to bettors and removed himself from one or more games so prop bets placed on his “unders” would hit. The federal government has alleged that Rozier, like Porter, removed himself from a game for betting purposes.

Rozier allegedly told Deniro Laster, a childhood friend, that he would fake an injury and leave the Charlotte Hornets’ game against the New Orleans Pelicans on March 23, 2023, and Laster allegedly sold that information to Marves Fairley, who allegedly shared it with Chris Hennen. (It also alleged that, when Porter planned to remove himself from two games in 2024, Hennen shared that information with Fairley.) Hennen allegedly placed multiple bets on Rozier’s unders and directed a network of associates to do the same. Among the unnamed co-conspirators who allegedly bet on Rozier’s unders is one of Rozier’s relatives, who had previously placed dozens of prop bets related to Rozier but, until then, exclusively bet the over.

Both Billups and Rozier have maintained their innocence. In an interview with Prime Video’s Cassidy Hubbarth on Friday, NBA commissioner Adam Silver said that the league initially “didn’t find anything” when it investigated unusual betting activity related to Rozier in that game, but pointed out that the government “has subpoena power, can threaten to put people in jail, can do all kinds of things that the league office can’t do.” If Billups is found to have shared insider information for betting purposes and Rozier is found to have limited his participation in a game for betting purposes, their respective contracts could be voided and their respective careers could be over.

Billups was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2024. The Hall of Fame has a policy allowing for review — and possible disciplinary action — if a member’s conduct harms the integrity or reputation of the game.

2. Could other NBA players be implicated? 

The federal investigations that led to these indictments are ongoing. It is possible that more current or former players or coaches could be implicated.

In the sports-betting case, the federal government has alleged that an unnamed person who lived in Florida and was “at times an NBA player” conspired with Fairley to leverage his relationship with an Orlando Magic starter to find out before the public that the team planned to rest some of its best players in a game on April 6, 2023. This information was allegedly used to place at least one successful bet against the Magic. The identity of “Co-Conspirator 1” is known to the grand jury but not to the public, and the same is true of the player with whom the alleged co-conspirator has a personal relationship.

Malik Beasley, who most recently played for the Detroit Pistons, remains an unsigned free agent after it was reported in late June that he was under federal investigation for unusual activity involving his prop bets. Silver said after this that the NBA had launched its own investigation into the matter. Beasley was not named in the sports-betting indictment on Thursday, but that doesn’t necessarily mean he is in the clear.

According to the other indictment, Billups and Jones (who is also a defendant in the sports-betting case) participated in rigged poker games dating back to 2019. Organizers allegedly used the former players as “face cards” to attract “fish” (i.e. unwitting players) to play in games that were rigged with technology such as a modified shuffling machine and an X-ray poker table. Billups is specifically alleged to have participated in a game held in Las Vegas in April 2019. Los Angeles Clippers coach Tyronn Lue attended that game, but did not sit at Billups’ table, according to Pablo Torre of “Pablo Torre Finds Out.”

Several professional athletes have played in poker games organized by the group of people who were indicted on Thursday, per Torre. The group allegedly organized both rigged and “square” (but still illegal) poker games. Kevin Garnett went to a game in Los Angeles in 2019 and left early because he’d been under the impression that it was an after-party, not a poker game, according to Torre.

3. How will this change the NBA’s relationship to sports betting? 

This is a funny question to ask, considering that 13 of the league’s 30 teams broadcast their games locally on the FanDuel Sports Network. At this point, the business of legal sports betting is intertwined with the business of the NBA, its teams and its broadcast partners.

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That does not mean, however, that nothing can change. On Tuesday, before this scandal broke, Silver said in an interview on ESPN’s “The Pat McAfee Show” that the league was in favor of prop bet reform.

“It’s not completely in our control, but we’ve asked some of our partners to pull back some of the prop bets,” Silver said. “Especially when they’re on two-way players, guys who don’t have the same stake in the competition, where it’s too easy to manipulate something which seems otherwise small and inconsequential to the overall score: maybe a couple rebounds that some player gets or whatever. So we’re trying to put in place — and learning as we go and working with the betting companies — some additional control to prevent some of that manipulation.”

Also in that interview, Silver said that, while legal sports betting is “unlikely to go away,” there should be “more regulation.” He added, “I wish there were federal regulation rather than state-by-state. I think you have got to monitor the amount of promotion, the amount of advertising around it.”

Silver maintained his stance that regulated, legalized sports betting is preferable to illegal sports betting, partially because “we can monitor it in ways that were unimaginable years ago.”

Three days later, Silver said he was “deeply disturbed” and “had a pit in my stomach” when he learned of the indictments.