By Greyson Potter, ’29

Staff Writer

For a very, very long time, the cardinal sin of professional sports has been gambling: players making bets on and fixing games for profit. Let’s be honest, who wants to watch a rigged game? If you want to watch something fixed, watch the WWE, not the NFL or the MLB. And pro sports leagues have not been very sympathetic toward those who have been caught gambling. Take the Chicago “Black Sox” of 1919. They intentionally lost the World Series to get a big payout. Eight players on that team were banned for life from Major League Baseball. Perhaps the most famous example of the consequences of athletes’ gambling is the late, great Pete Rose. The MLB’s hits king with 4,192 in his career was found guilty of betting on games, including his own, and throwing them, for years. In 1989, Rose was banned from baseball and the Hall of Fame, a place where someone with 4,000 hits belongs.

In late October, the FBI announced that they had made 38 arrests across eleven states involving illegal poker games and sports betting. Two of these people were NBA coaches, and one of them was an active player. Chauncey Billups, Hall of Fame guard and current Portland Trail Blazers head coach, allegedly worked with the mafia to run fixed poker games. Former Cleveland Cavaliers assistant coach Damon Jones and Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier III were arrested for providing illegal betting information. The news broke just days after the 2025-26 NBA season tipped off, putting a sour taste in the mouths of those happy that basketball is back. The sport has never really seen anything like this, and some reports indicate that the news so far may only be the tip of the iceberg, with an impact much more far-reaching.

Chauncey Billups was just entering his fifth season as the head coach of the Portland Trail Blazers when he was arrested. It was found that he had been working with the mafia to illegally rig poker games. He and his mafia pals would use high-tech gadgets such as rigged shuffling machines, X-ray tables, and special contact lenses to see marked cards. They also had poker chip trays that could read cards and fake cell phones with card analyzers. All of this information, along with how good each player’s hand was, was transmitted to a behind-the-scenes “quarterback” who would process it and send it to the players he or she was working with. The scheme allegedly made $7 million over six years, with one victim losing $200,000 at one of these tables. And if you could not pay your debts, the mafia thugs would not be shy about violently threatening you. Not only that, but Billups was involved in gambling as well. He allegedly gave bettors insider information about his team’s tanking, who he was playing, and who he was not playing in a given game.

Terry Rozier was entering his 10th NBA season, this one with the Miami Heat. He has been there for a couple of years now. But it was Scary Terry’s actions that sparked the whole investigation into the NBA and gambling.

It started all the way back in March of 2023, when Rozier told his childhood friend that he would leave the game early with an “injury” to hit his under bets. This friend, Deniro Laster, told other conspirators what Rozier said so they could all cash in on it. Terry stayed true to his word, leaving the game after about nine minutes. Thousands of dollars came in on his unders because of this, sparking the NBA to look into it. There was another instance in January 2024, when Rozier said he would leave the game with a leg injury. Sure enough, he left that game with a leg injury, and a considerable sum of money came in on his unders again. The NBA had been investigating him, but had supposedly cleared him to continue playing.

Damon Jones was the third person involved with professional basketball to be arrested. He was a former player and assistant coach with the Cleveland Cavaliers and the Los Angeles Lakers. He was more on the gambling side of things, where he supposedly told some conspirators to make a large bet on Milwaukee one night, because a specific player would be out. LeBron James showed up on the injury report that night, and Los Angeles lost again, with lots of money coming in on this loss.

Sports betting has always been a disgusting practice for a professional athlete, something frowned upon by all. It can tarnish a reputation and ruin a career in the blink of an eye. It happened to Pete Rose. And now it could very easily happen to someone like Chauncey Billups, who was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. If he is found guilty, his reputation and how people remember him will be changed for the worse, forever. The same goes for Terry Rozier and Damon Jones. Neither of them was going to the Hall of Fame. But if found guilty, they will forever be associated with one of the biggest gambling scandals in the history of professional basketball. None of these people will ever be associated with the NBA again if convicted.

Not exactly the way I would want to go out.