The NBA is the reason why the NBA is dealing with a gambling scandal — again
Once sports betting became legal, it was only a matter of time before this happened
By Carron J. Phillips
Tim Donaghy is the lone scapegoat no more.
Eighteen years after former NBA Commissioner David Stern labeled Donaghy—a former referee who fixed games as part of a gambling scheme—a “rogue, isolated criminal,” the league is dealing with another gambling scandal.
The idea of Donaghy working alone never made sense. The evidence that has been presented by the federal government’s investigation into a gambling operation announced Thursday does—because this is what happens when professional sports leagues and their media partners get into bed with “legal” sports betting.
Last week, Portland Trail Blazers Coach Chauncey Billups, Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier, and former Cleveland Cavaliers player and assistant coach Damon Jones were arrested after the FBI’s investigations into “illegal sports betting and rigged poker games backed by the Mafia,” as reported by ESPN. The allegations include everything from using nonpublic information to bet on games, wire fraud and money laundering conspiracies, and involvement in high-stakes poker games that featured X-ray tables and high-tech contact lenses.
“My message to the defendants who’ve been rounded up today is this: Your winning streak has ended. Your luck has run out,” said Joseph Nocella, a federal prosecutor for the Eastern District of New York. He called the situation “one of the most brazen sports corruption schemes since online sports betting became widely legalized in the United States.”
“The fraud is mind-boggling,” FBI Director Kash Patel told reporters. “We’re talking about tens of millions of dollars in fraud and theft and robbery across a multiyear investigation.”
Jones, a close friend of LeBron James, is accused of disclosing private injury information about the Los Angeles Lakers star; James has not been accused of any wrongdoing. Legal representatives of the men involved have released statements in defense of their clients.
Full disclosure: In 2022, I was a part of a team of journalists at Deadspin investigating allegations that Jones had been involved in gambling in his time with the Cavaliers organization, for which he was an assistant coach for the G League’s Canton Charge and for the Cavaliers. He’s also served as an unofficial assistant coach for the Los Angeles Lakers. Deadspin’s investigation was never published.
Though the public was largely unaware of the allegations against Jones, last week’s events seemed inevitable.
“Betting on professional sports is currently illegal in most of the United States outside of Nevada. I believe we need a different approach.”
That’s how current NBA Commissioner Adam Silver started a 2014 New York Times Op-Ed, “Legalize and Regulate Sports Betting.”
“I’d say when it comes to sports betting, I certainly don’t regret writing that op-ed piece and being in favor of legalized sports betting,” Silver told ESPN last year. “I still think you can’t turn the clock back. I think, as I said at the time, with the advent of the internet, widely available sports betting online ... that we had to deal directly with technology and recognize that if we don’t legalize sports betting, people are going to find ways to do it illegally.”
In 2023, investigations against Rozier had already begun pertaining to him manipulating his performance as part of a gambling scheme. By 2024, Jontay Porter had been banned from the NBA for “violating league rules by disclosing confidential information to sports bettors, limiting his own participation in one or more games for betting purposes, and betting on NBA games,” according to a press release from the league.
Adam Silver, meet consequences. Consequences, meet Adam Silver.
With the growing list of players suspended for breaking the gambling policies in the NFL and the influx of money that has overtaken collegiate and professional sports from name, image, and likeness (NIL) revenue sharing, and the introduction of private equity funds from national and international groups, the NBA and sports as a whole have no one to blame but themselves.
However, this isn’t the first time basketball has been the target of a splashy press conference from the FBI.
“We have your playbook.”
That’s what William Sweeney, assistant director-in-charge of the FBI’s New York office, said on Sept. 26, 2017, when the feds attempted to put college basketball on notice because they believed their investigation was going to deal a deathblow to illegal recruiting in the sport. It wound up being all pomp, less circumstance.
In the coming days and weeks, the fallout from the FBI’s investigation will be an inescapable story that will call into question Silver’s words, the legitimacy and authenticity of NBA games, and Donaghy’s history. Much of this discussion will occur on sports shows that fans watch on TV and listen to on podcasts—and most of them will be sponsored by a legal sports betting company.
Carron J. Phillips is an award-winning journalist who writes on race, culture, social issues, politics, and sports. He hails from Saginaw, Michigan, and is a graduate of Morehouse College and Syracuse University.
is anything real these days ?
Particularly for college basketball, gambling scandals are very old, going back to the point-fixing scheme in the 1950s (or was it 40s or 60s)
Anyone with even 2 firing neurons could have foreseen that legalizing sports betting (and advertising it on TV to boot) was going to be a meal ticket for The Mob.
So all that's happened is that the chickens have come home to roost.