Terry Rozier & Others Arrested in Alleged Gambling Cases

[Moranis]

Certain prop bets are far more prone to this sort of thing. I think the easiest one I can think of is in baseball.  It is 1st pitch, ball or strike. That is so easy to manipulate with having almost no effect on the game outcome that it is incredibly easy to manipulate (this is allegedly what at least one of the guardians pitcher is accused of).  It might make sense to remove those sorts of bets from the equation entirely. 

[Who]

I don't like Chauncey Billups being placed on leave.

The crimes he is accused of have nothing to do with basketball (poker) and it is not even clear he has done anything wrong. It just an accusation at this point.

This is punishment before guilt.

[Vermont Green]

Scamming on prop bets, like Rozier appears to have done, I would think is pretty easy to catch.  If suddenly there is an uptick in action on Terry Rozier going under 15 points (or whatever) the books can see that.  Maybe normally, there is $10,000 being bet on Rozier props but then suddenly, for one game, it jumps to $300,000 and in that same game, Rozier limps off the court in the 1st quarter with a mysterious injury.  That is going to stand out to the books.

So for this reason, I don't think this type of scamming is rampant.  Betting on the outcome of games, over/under, point spreads, would also have the same issue.  If there was a sudden increase in the action on a particular team or ref or something, it would show up.  And I think you would need to have more people involved.  Can one ref for example, make sure a team wins by a certain number of points?  Can one player?  Seems harder to do than the individual prop betting manipulation.  One player can make sure he doesn't get more than 5 Rebs or whatever.  Or limp off the court in the 1st quarter.

I get your logic, but I'd point to Tim Donaghty.  He cheated for years without being caught.

I don't know all the details, Donaghty must not have been betting all that much money.  My logic was intended to support my point that this is "not rampant".  Not rampant is different than never happens.  Are you suggesting that this is rampant?  How do you define rampant?  Every game every night?  One or two games a night?

It is an inherent problems with gambling, there is going to be some of this, even at the professional level.  Small time stuff can go under the radar for sure.  But people always get greedy and the bets always get bigger, and that is when it will show up.  If one rogue ref wants to make himself an extra $100 or whatever every game, it will be hard to trace that level of bet, especially if the rogue ref is smart enough to use different books.  But if this rogue ref is tied up with more organized criminals, and the $100 bets start to become (20) $1,000 bets, that will show up.

[Roy H.]

Scamming on prop bets, like Rozier appears to have done, I would think is pretty easy to catch.  If suddenly there is an uptick in action on Terry Rozier going under 15 points (or whatever) the books can see that.  Maybe normally, there is $10,000 being bet on Rozier props but then suddenly, for one game, it jumps to $300,000 and in that same game, Rozier limps off the court in the 1st quarter with a mysterious injury.  That is going to stand out to the books.

So for this reason, I don't think this type of scamming is rampant.  Betting on the outcome of games, over/under, point spreads, would also have the same issue.  If there was a sudden increase in the action on a particular team or ref or something, it would show up.  And I think you would need to have more people involved.  Can one ref for example, make sure a team wins by a certain number of points?  Can one player?  Seems harder to do than the individual prop betting manipulation.  One player can make sure he doesn't get more than 5 Rebs or whatever.  Or limp off the court in the 1st quarter.

I get your logic, but I'd point to Tim Donaghty.  He cheated for years without being caught.

I don't know all the details, Donaghty must not have been betting all that much money.  My logic was intended to support my point that this is "not rampant".  Not rampant is different than never happens.  Are you suggesting that this is rampant?  How do you define rampant?  Every game every night?  One or two games a night?

It is an inherent problems with gambling, there is going to be some of this, even at the professional level.  Small time stuff can go under the radar for sure.  But people always get greedy and the bets always get bigger, and that is when it will show up.  If one rogue ref wants to make himself an extra $100 or whatever every game, it will be hard to trace that level of bet, especially if the rogue ref is smart enough to use different books.  But if this rogue ref is tied up with more organized criminals, and the $100 bets start to become (20) $1,000 bets, that will show up.

You also said this:

Can one ref for example, make sure a team wins by a certain number of points?

And the answer is, yes.  And, if organized crime had control of a ref, it wouldn't be that hard to spread out the bets across a network of people to avoid obvious detection. 

It won't shock me if the prosecution ends with the current defendants, but it also won't surprise me at all if there are more names in professional sports connected to these cases.

[Amonkey]

I don't like Chauncey Billups being placed on leave.

The crimes he is accused of have nothing to do with basketball (poker) and it is not even clear he has done anything wrong. It just an accusation at this point.

This is punishment before guilt.

I think he has been booked so he can?t really coach either way. This does give way for Tiago Splitter to be interim coach, meaning that he?s the first Brazilian coach in the NBA. That is pretty huge in Brazil.

[Kernewek]

This is just a gut feel, but I think it is just the tip of the iceberg. There?s gonna be some nervous NBA players in the next six months waiting to see if the feds will be knocking on their door.

The only reason I?d lean the other way on this is that if what rozier was doing was rampant in the NBA, these gambling companies would be doing a lot of squawking about it.  All the times I can remember players getting caught up in this stuff, there are reports that gambling companies on alerting the league to possible fraud bc they?re the ones losing millions because of this.  Even with Rozier, he?s been getting talked about for at least a year, there was just no proof directly to him.  I think there were even reports at one time about odd bets being place in Lebrons games, to which now we?re hearing the reports at Damon Jones.

I think if this was a league wide mess we?d be hearing a lot more rumblings about odd betting swings in the media.

But this is just my guess as well

I tend to agree - although this is going to be a significant case, regardless of what we ultimately find out (and what we don't, I suppose). I don't think the NBA lottery is 'rigged' in the same way, sometimes real life delivers stories that are too implausible to be fiction.

Related - I don't remember which player was going on about this on a podcast, but there are definitely some guys in the league who don't see the harm in telling their friends to bet a certain way (e.g. take the under) and then play in a way to hit that bet. There's no real way to regulate that sort of behaviour if you want these guys to have any expectation of personal privacy.

Yeah I suppose It?s kind of like trying to regulate collusion between players about teaming up before their free agents.

As far as players not seeing the harm in it, I guess it depends on what bets and type of bets they?re telling friends to make.  There?s a ton of harm in telling friends to bet my unders on player props and then removing yourself from the game.  But if SGA is telling friends to bet on the thunder to cover bc they?re coaches and players feel like they found a huge loophole in the opponents defense that they?re gonna exploit, well I guess that?s more subjective.

Personally I feel like it?s a hard line that should not be crossed, and having strict boundaries in conversations with your friends and families is part of the cost making millions in a pro sport that?s part of the gambling world.

Agree - I can also see a world where I would feel badly about not sharing information that could help my good friends make a significant amount of money relative to their current situations. That's literally just insider trading in a nutshell, though.

[SHAQATTACK]

Just having your name associated with this type of stuff would seem to ruin you for life in sports ., even at a local small town level, even if your innocent, it?s the type of thing that will follow your name past your death.  Sports can make you famous for reasons you don?t want

I would go out of my way to be squeaky clean if I was in any job on a professional sports organization.   

Fans never forget

[greg683x]

I don't like Chauncey Billups being placed on leave.

The crimes he is accused of have nothing to do with basketball (poker) and it is not even clear he has done anything wrong. It just an accusation at this point.

This is punishment before guilt.

Unless there?s been some kind of an update, I thought there was links to Chauncey and basketball betting, just not as much of a smoking gun.  Whoever is making statements about this to the feds said that people were being tipped off that the Blazers would be sitting their players and essentially tanking the game.  According the report I read, based on the information given, the likely source of the tip was Billups.  It?s not very concrete proof but this information coming while he?s also being investigated on other gambling scams is not a good look and, for me at least, enough to tell him to stay at home while all this gets worked out

[Roy H.]

I don't like Chauncey Billups being placed on leave.

The crimes he is accused of have nothing to do with basketball (poker) and it is not even clear he has done anything wrong. It just an accusation at this point.

This is punishment before guilt.

Unless there?s been some kind of an update, I thought there was links to Chauncey and basketball betting, just not as much of a smoking gun.  Whoever is making statements about this to the feds said that people were being tipped off that the Blazers would be sitting their players and essentially tanking the game.  According the report I read, based on the information given, the likely source of the tip was Billups.  It?s not very concrete proof but this information coming while he?s also being investigated on other gambling scams is not a good look and, for me at least, enough to tell him to stay at home while all this gets worked out

Yeah, isn't he an unnamed co-conspirator in the NBA case?

And, he's named in the mob poker case, where he allegedly helped cheat players out of tens of millions of dollars?

Credible links between a coach and organized crime is a solid reason to put him on leave, I think.

[MattyIce]

I don't like Chauncey Billups being placed on leave.

The crimes he is accused of have nothing to do with basketball (poker) and it is not even clear he has done anything wrong. It just an accusation at this point.

This is punishment before guilt.

yes although he wasn?t named he is logically a coconspirator, although presumed innocent. 

edit..I didn?t see that others already answered

[SparzWizard]

Unrelated to the NBA, but related to 'sports gambling' in another major league sport where last night Al Michaels was making a comment about the 'over' in the Chargers/Vikings game. Where the Chargers were up 34-10 with like 3 minutes to go in the 4th and stating it's "not quite 'over' yet but it's close to being 'over'". The context- the O/U was 44.5.

Then Chargers kicker Cameron Dicker came out and drilled a 45-yarder and the 'over' hit. I liked how he mentioned "sometimes, you never know when that 'half' will destroy you" in referencing to the half point Chose a bad time to mention the betting line between LAC/MIN.

Vegas and rigging!