By: Manuel Polanco
On Oct. 23, Portland Trailblazers coach and NBA Hall of Famer (HOFer) Chauncy Billups was arrested by the FBI for his alleged involvement in an illegal gambling ring. Billups wasn’t the only person arrested, however, as Miami Heat player Terry Rozier and former player Damos Jones were also arrested for allegedly partaking in this ring.
Rozier would allegedly manipulate his performance so that bettors could have an advantage in the stakes. Rozier isn’t the first player to do this, as back in July of 2024, Jontay Porter of the Toronto Raptors was arrested for partaking in an illegal gambling ring where he was manipulating his performance for bettors. The question now is, how did we get here?
For the past two to three years, the amount of pro sports betting content has flooded the media space and created an environment where betting is no longer a stigma.
Imagine this, 10 years ago you’d be watching Entertainment and Sports Programming Network (ESPN) do their daily recap or reporting on whatever story of the day they’re talking about, now fast forward a decade, and what usefulness does ESPN have? Live sports and that’s about it.
The funniest thing, however, is how open ESPN is with promoting sports betting.
When reporting on the arrest of both Billups and Rozier, ESPN analyst Mike Greenberg says, “[…] sports gambling was something that was always in the shadows; it was something the leagues stayed far away from; it was something networks like ESPN would stay far away from.” Now, this is all good and well, but the ironic and maybe funniest part is the fact that ESPN put a graphic up of their sports betting site, “ESPNBET,” at the bottom of the screen as he was saying this.
How can one condemn sports betting and then promote it at the same time? How can ESPN both denounce illegal sports betting but have the gall to promote their own site in the process?
USNews reports that Americans bet $150 billion on games in 2024. The article goes on to say, “Many of the survey respondents would be considered casual bettors, with 44% placing fewer than five bets in a typical month and 40% saying they wager less than $100 monthly. However, 27% say they regularly wager at least $500 a month.”
According to Addiction Center, 12% of Americans partake in sports gambling, with sportsbooks of choice being either DraftKings, BetMGM, and Caesars. Long were the days when you would go to the casino and get that dopamine rush after every bet; now you can get that rush right from your phone with a code for DraftKings to get easy money.
The culture around betting has gotten increasingly popular even amongst athletes, but this brings about two issues:
players getting harassed by people who out-parlay on them, and players promoting gambling.
As more and more people place bets on players, more often than not, they will be judged on their performance and whether this performance helped get a good payout. All this does is make athletes more paranoid about their game and stress them out when random strangers send them death threats.
An article from ESPN written by David Purdum detailed how the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) athletes have been subjected to constant harassment from people who wager on them on betting apps.
Purdum notes, “The analysis flagged 743 abusive or threatening messages referencing betting or match-fixing allegations, with 73% of them occurring during March Madness, the most popular event with American bettors. Women athletes received approximately 59% more abusive messages than men, the analysis found.”
As the dilemma of sports gambling grows and potentially more arrests could happen, sports organizations shouldn’t be surprised when one of their own gets caught for this crime, as this has been happening under their noses for a while.
Why is it now that we can allow players to promote gambling to young audiences who will be more susceptible to it? A young sports gambler will grow up to be a full-time gambler with bad habits and a dopamine rush programmed into them like an AI trained to mimic your voice. There used to be a time when we frowned on sports betting, but it seems everyone is now trying to hit on a lucrative parlay.
The beauty of sports was watching your favorite team go out and either disappoint you or make you happy. Now this era of betting is changing the landscape, where the love and integrity of the game are lost, and in the UFC’s case, people will look at the sport as a fixed match with a predetermined outcome.