Rumors

We know gambling has become more intertwined with the NBA and other professional sports through sponsorships and partnerships. What protocols are in place to make sure players abide by league rules, and how does the organization go about encouraging overall financial literacy with players? Trajan Langdon: Both topics are obviously very important to us, and the NBA is constantly educating players and all employees on gambling and the no-tolerance policies that come with that. In terms of financial literacy, we have to be careful with the information we do give them, because it is their money once we give it to them. If you steer them down one path like investing, you do take risks, so we can’t give them insight into how they invest their money.

New York Times

A spokesperson for the NBPA said the union would be open to creating more limitations around prop betting if it helped diminish the amount of abuse that NBA players receive related to betting. “NBA players compete at the highest level with the utmost integrity and are concerned that prop bets have become an increasingly alarming source of player harassment, both online and in person,” an NBPA spokesperson said. “If tighter regulations can help minimize that abuse, then we support taking a closer look at them.”

New York Times

The National Basketball Players Association views the Porter case as an outlier and has seen no evidence other performance manipulation in the league, according to a spokesperson. The NBPA is, however, concerned about the abuse athletes face from disgruntled bettors.

ESPN

With three players involved in a federal gambling investigation, the NBA and its players' association said this week that they support further limitations on certain types of bets to reduce the risk of manipulation and combat athlete abuse by gamblers. "Protecting the integrity of our game is paramount, and we believe reasonable limitations on certain prop bets should be given due consideration," an NBA spokesperson said in a statement to ESPN. "Any approach should aim to reduce the risk of performance manipulation while ensuring that fans who wish to place prop bets can continue to do so via legal, regulated markets."

ESPN

Fullcourtpass: Michael Porter Jr. on sports betting “Think about it if you can get all your homies rich by telling yo bet 10K on my under..this one game imma act like I got an injury and they all get a lil bag… some people come from nothing & they think like that.” (Via @onenightsteiny )

x.com

Marcus Morris: Don't ever put my name with nothing but fraud. This is not fraud activity. I have never wrote a check to no casinos in exchange for money that I can put in my pocket. I wrote exchange for credit thinking that you know the source of the income and you know what I've done in the past years to pay it back plus put the money back that I chose to take from y'all to gamble with. So you know I want to just clear that up and then you could take it how you want. You could think about think about me this way. But I know what my loved ones and the people that surround us and the people we surround ourselves with really feel about us. But listen, jail, don't f*ck with it. Don't f*ck with it. That's why we had to do this sh*t outside cuz I couldn't sit in no small ass room. I came home, I think I slept outside.

YouTube

Mike Vorkunov: Gilbert Arenas made a poker table with “ARENAS POKER CLUB” printed on top of it, alongside a a silhouette of a man wearing a No. 0 jersey with “ARENAS” on the name plate, according to federal prosecutors, and sent it to the man the feds say he had rent out his home and set up the events.

Twitter

A professional bettor placed 30 wagers in 46 minutes, all involving Terry Rozier in a 2023 NBA game, according to documents obtained by ESPN that reveal new details about the suspicious betting under scrutiny by federal investigators. On the morning of March 23, 2023, a bettor at a sportsbook in Biloxi, Mississippi, placed $13,759 in bets on the unders on Rozier's statistics in a game that night between the Charlotte Hornets and New Orleans Pelicans, according to the documents, which ESPN acquired through an open records request. All 30 bets won, after Rozier, an eight-year veteran with the Hornets at the time, exited 10 minutes into the game, citing a foot issue.

ESPN

Sources told ESPN that multiple sportsbooks in New Orleans also received heavier-than-expected action on the under on Rozier props, starting in the morning and lasting until midafternoon. At 2:24 p.m. the day of the game, U.S. Integrity sent a nationwide alert about "Suspicious Wagering Terry Rozier NBA Player Props," according to documents ESPN obtained through another open records request.

ESPN

Rozier's attorney, Jim Trusty, said while the federal probe remains ongoing, his client is not a target of the investigation. A spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of New York said in an email that they could not confirm or deny Rozier's status in the investigation and declined further comment. Trusty said Rozier met with NBA and FBI officials multiple times in 2023 and that the initial investigation determined that Rozier had done nothing wrong.

ESPN

In the wake of a recent federal investigation into former Detroit Pistons guard Malik Beasley on allegations of gambling related to NBA games and prop bets, Silver said that legalized sports gambling was still preferable to the alternative. "If my choice were legalized sports betting vs. illegal sports betting, I still think a legalized structure is better," Silver said. "What we're seeing now in some of the investigations you're referencing is operational data, which causes in many cases, betting companies or independent agencies who are overseeing this betting activity to raise flags and say what's happening here? "I think the issue is if you didn't have that legalized structure, what would otherwise be going on that went undetected?"

ESPN

Chris Haynes: Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier has not been cleared of any wrongdoing and remains under federal investigation on a potential gambling probe, league sources tell me.

Twitter

Pablo Torre: One source I spoke to who was close to several of Malik Beasley's current and former NBA teammates immediately told me when I asked if he had heard anything about the gambling issues, quote, "He's a dumbass. I believe everything." End quote. So that's not enough. We had to keep digging.

YouTube

And what I'm told is contrary to Shams Charania’s reporting, is that Terry Rozier has not been cleared of any wrongdoing, only that his name came up in the existing federal investigation. And this relates directly to why Moose is this character that we're focusing on, because Freemoose_NBA speaks to the federal investigation, which clearly is also still ongoing. Right. On that day, the same day that Terry Rosier News drops, this guy, Freemoose_NBA, tweeted something that was even more provocative because on that day, he posted, quote, "First was Jontay, then was Rosier, next you'll hear about capital M, four asterisks, capital B, and then six asterisks." The symmetry of the rule of three. Jontay, Rozier, M****** B*****. This guy, Freemoose_NBA, posted another tweet right after that one and said there's another current player who's going to have a report come out about them next. Won't say the name, but they play on the Pistons right now. This is the first documented mention by anyone anywhere that Malik Beasley was going to come up as part of this investigation.

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