Gambling scandal in the NBA this is the biggest story It was the culmination of years of collaboration between the professional leagues and the multibillion-dollar gambling industry, which has now crossed the line from synergy to scandal.
In two sweeping federal indictments unsealed in Brooklyn on ThursdayProsecutors have charged more than 30 people, including Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier, Portland Trail Blazers coach Chauncey Billups and former NBA player and assistant Damon Jones, in schemes that turned inside information and rigged card games into sources of profit for organized crime.
Federal officials called the dual operations “Nothing But the Bid” and “Operation Royal Flush,” likening the proliferation of defendants and their aliases to something out of a Scorsese movie.
It's the most serious corruption crisis to hit a major American league since betting was legalized in most U.S. states, and the most telling picture yet of just how deeply gambling has permeated the bloodstream of professional sports.
The documents describe a network of insiders, bookmakers and Mafia affiliates that allegedly used players' private data to bet on certain in-game events – such as how many passes a player would make or whether he would make his first three-point attempt – and ran high-stakes poker games equipped with cheating technology.
Prosecutors said Jones leaked information about the unnamed man's injuries. NBA stars to players before the public knew, while Rozier used the knowledge of his playing status to make money from it.
According to prosecutors, Rozier told a friend in advance that he planned to withdraw early from a game against New Orleans on March 23, 2023, due to a “suspected injury.” This information was passed on to bettors. He played less than 10 minutes before leaving with what was listed as a leg issue, a decision that proved highly profitable for those betting on his point and rebound totals (if there was nothing else that could come close to Rozier's total). annual salary more than $26 million.).
The second indictment alleges that Billups and others conspired with members of the Gambino, Genovese and Bonanno crime families to operate underground poker games in Manhattan, Las Vegas and the Hamptons using X-ray tables, modified card shuffling machines and wireless signals to swipe cards. opponents.
Prosecutors called Billups a “face card,” a notorious lure used to lure wealthy gamblers to private games. At one Vegas game in 2019, organizers allegedly told him to start losing because he had won too many incredible hands and might arouse suspicion. The operation ultimately brought in more than $7 million over six years, authorities said. Billups' attorney called the allegations “ridiculous,” insisting his client would never risk his impeccable reputation “for a card game.”
FBI Director Kash Patel called the broader scandal “a criminal enterprise spanning both the NBA and Cosa Nostra,” estimating illicit proceeds in the tens of millions of dollars. Prosecutor Joseph Nocella called it “one of the most brazen sports corruption schemes since online betting became legal in the United States.”
The symbolism did not go unnoticed by anyone. As Patel made his announcement in Washington, ESPN's Get Up program aired a segment about the arrests with an ESPN Bet banner advertising underneath host Mike Greenberg's face. The ticker – an advertisement for the bookmaker's own sportsbook launched last year with Penn Entertainment – scrolled across the screen for several seconds before disappearing halfway through his comment.
Whether its removal was accidental or intentional was unclear, but the optics were unmistakable: ESPN's morning anchor spoke in sober tones about gambling corruption while the company's betting app flashed underneath him. The clip quickly spread on social networks. It's a split-screen morality play for an industry that can't decide whether it's covering the dangers of gambling with journalistic rigor or profiting from it.
Unreal scene from ESPN's Get Up This Morning.
They talk about FBI arrests for NBA sports gambling. Mike Greenberg explains how ESPN avoided sports gambling… while an ESPN BET ad is on the screen.
The graphics team realizes the discrepancy and will shut down Chiron lol. pic.twitter.com/ICCvyhJHPA
— Trung Phan (@TrungTPhan) October 23, 2025
Sports betting was sold with the promise of opening up new horizons of fan engagement. Since the US Supreme Court repealed the Law on the Protection of Professional and Amateur Sports. In 2018, betting went from being a Vegas sideshow to a national pastime.
Now fans can bet on anything from the next basket to the next pitch with just a few taps on their phones. The saturation was merciless. Hockey fans saw gambling advertisements every 13 seconds during high-profile games, according to research from the University of Bristol. shared with Guardian found. During June's Stanley Cup Final, viewers averaged 3.5 betting messages per minute, and operators spent billions turning every play into a bet.
“The constant barrage of marketing is especially dangerous for young and vulnerable groups,” said Democratic Congressman Paul Tonko, warning that the industry is preparing “a new generation of potential players.”
In the third quarter of this year, legal sports betting generated $10 billion in revenue, up 19% from last year. The NBA and other leagues have signed lucrative partnerships with media companies and sportsbooks. Only the NBA's deal with Sportradar opened up the possibility of micro-betting on real-time in-game events, fueling a market that values information measured in milliseconds.
This same infrastructure has made games more vulnerable than ever. Every piece of inside information—a rest day, a substitution, an ankle sprain in a shootout—can be monetized. It's a structural and practical invitation to temptation, and the sheer volume of bets on offer makes manipulation easy to hide.
The charges against Rozier and Jones seem inevitable consequences of a system that treats information itself as currency. What Tim Donaghy case was for the judges, this is for the data-driven gambling economy.
This is a catastrophic time for the NBA. leagues new 11-year media rights deal worth $77 billion The agreement, signed last year and coming into force this week, was supposed to usher in a new era of global prosperity and record incomes. Instead, the season began under a cloud of federal charges that reached into the locker room and coaching staff. Rozier and Billups were immediately placed on leave.
The league says it is cooperating with authorities and insists that “the integrity of our game remains our top priority,” but for many fans that integrity is now in question. The scandal has already prompted calls from regulators to reconsider rates, as Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine has said. called for a ban earlier this year following a separate Major League Baseball investigation into suspicious betting.
It has also revived the question of who really benefits from legalized gambling. States receive tax revenue; leagues and media companies profit from sponsorships and advertising; and the bettors overwhelmingly lose. Research shows that almost all sports players lose in the long term, with the greatest harm experienced by young people from low-income communities. Betting apps equipped with behavioral algorithmstarget those who are most likely to chase losses.
Moral dissonance was once abstract. This is now on full display at crime walks and FBI press conferences. Sports that once warned about the destructive effects of gambling now depends on it. The NBA, NFL, MLB and NHL are creating betting partnerships that combine sponsorship and content, even as they penalize players for gambling violations. When ESPN, built on journalistic credibility, can't discuss a gambling scandal without dragging its own sportsbook underneath it, the conflict of interest is no longer theoretical but televised.
Thursday's charges mark the logical end of an economic revolution that has turned fandom into a market and risk-taking into entertainment. The money is huge, access is tempting, and fencing is largely voluntary.
The same Supreme Court decision that sparked the boom came with a warning. “Legalizing sports gambling is a controversial issue,” Justice Samuel Alito wrote in 2018, acknowledging that it can corrupt professional and college sports. Six years later, that warning came in full force.
What started as an experiment in “fan engagement” has turned into a real threat to the trust that keeps fans watching. For the NBA and every league tied to gambling, the reckoning has already arrived.
