A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
The NBA says it's cooperating with the FBI's investigation into illegal gambling.
STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
Yeah, federal authorities arrested more than 30 people yesterday. They include an active pro player, Terry Rozier of the Miami Heat, and an active coach, Chauncey Billups of the Portland Trail Blazers.
MARTÍNEZ: So how widespread is this? NPR sports correspondent Becky Sullivan is with us. Becky, this would be a big deal if it was just one player, but this is way more than that.
BECKY SULLIVAN, BYLINE: Yeah, exactly. It's not just one player. It's not just one team. According to the indictment, this scandal involved leaks from multiple teams. You had players or coaches with the Charlotte Hornets, the Toronto Raptors, the Los Angeles Lakers, the Orlando Magic and the Portland Trail Blazers all allegedly sharing nonpublic information with gamblers or friends who then told gamblers. And I think the access that crime rings and organized gamblers apparently have to NBA players and coaches should be a serious concern for the league because it's clear that even those who are making millions of dollars are at risk for getting swept up in this stuff. I mean, Billups made more than $100 million over the course of his Hall of Fame NBA career. He makes millions per year as a coach. Rozier was on a contract to make $26 million this year alone.
MARTÍNEZ: Yeah. How did all this even come to light?
SULLIVAN: Well, the way that these modern online gambling companies work is that there are these monitoring services that track bets across platforms looking for unusual patterns. And so if you take the Terry Rozier game, for example, this was a game back in 2023. He told a friend that he was going to withdraw early from the game with an injury. That wasn't public information at the time. The friend allegedly sold that information to a gambler, and then organized betters placed collectively around a quarter million dollars on various prop bets, basically saying - guessing that Rozier would have a worse game than usual. And so obviously when you have a quarter mil all flooding in on sort of a relatively random player's unders (ph), that rings alarm bells. The NBA was notified. The league actually investigated at the time and cleared Rozier of wrongdoing, although the indictment alleges that Rozier knew what was happening and had conspirators come to his home afterward to count their earnings. Rozier's lawyer, I should say, denies this and plans to fight these charges.
MARTÍNEZ: Now, Chauncey Billups was inducted into the Naismith Hall of Fame in 2024. He's the highest profile person named so far. So what are the charges...
SULLIVAN: Yeah.
MARTÍNEZ: ...Against him?
SULLIVAN: Well, he faces a count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and conspiracy to money launder. Both of those are related actually to an indictment about underground poker games. In that indictment, prosecutors allege that organized crime groups basically run these games and use Billups. They say that they used Billups as a celebrity to sort of lure in victims, and then the organizers used all this high-tech equipment, like rigged shuffling machines and X-ray poker tables and special glasses, to cheat and win. But the other indictment that's about sports gambling, Billups is not named there, but there is an unnamed co-conspirator described in a way that matches Billups exactly - the years he played in the league, when he became a coach. That person shared confidential info about how the Trail Blazers were planning to sit their stars in a game against the Chicago Bulls with a defendant who then shared that info with gamblers, who then wagered more than $100,000 on the game successfully. Billups - you know, his lawyer said in a statement to me, they deny the allegations both related to the poker and providing insider information and said quote, "we look forward to our day in court."
MARTÍNEZ: How's the league been reacting to this?
SULLIVAN: I mean, I think people are stunned by what's happening, people lamenting that just this mix of sort of social media, everybody's easy to contact, plus widespread legalization of gambling results in this constant contact with gamblers. Here's how Bruce Brown, a guard at the Denver Nuggets, put it to reporters yesterday.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
BRUCE BROWN: There's been games where I've done called every name in the book just 'cause I didn't hit a three or a two. I mean, I just - the state of the game we're in since sports betting got legal. So, I mean, you just kind of deal with it. Just not think about it. Don't check your DMs after games.
SULLIVAN: Also every team has their general counsel come talk to players before the season began to tell them what to do, what not to do, what's legal, what's not - and obviously, no betting on games, no sharing that kind of confidential information with gamblers. For many teams, that talk happened this week so it's obviously jarring for this news to happen now.
MARTÍNEZ: That's NPR's Becky Sullivan. Becky, thanks.
SULLIVAN: You're welcome. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
