October 24, 2025
Last week, the FBI arrested several prominent figures in the National Basketball Association and unsealed two federal indictments related to gambling. One of the investigations appears to involve an old fashioned and long-running poker cheating scam involving Portland Trailblazers head coach Chauncey Billups which was allegedly coordinated through established organized crime organizations, associates of which were also indicted.
The second investigation, however, involves the corruption of sports through either manipulation of athletic performance related to prop betting or the disclosure of insider information to gamblers involving Mr. Billups, Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier, and former NBA player, Damon Jones. The allegations involved providing insider information to gamblers or, in Mr. Rozier’s case, allegedly manipulating athletic performance in order for certain gamblers’ wagers to win. These alleged actions all directly compromise the integrity of the sport.
Indeed, the integrity of professional and collegiate athletics has been compromised by the explosion of new gambling products and the ubiquity of sports gambling that emerged in the wake of the 2018 Supreme Court decision in Murphy v. NCAA, the case which opened the door to state-licensed online sports gambling. Very likely, the athletes involved in this scandal struggled with gambling, were in over their heads and, as a result, made decisions that hurt the very sport that provided their livelihoods.
This is what happened with Jontay Porter, the NBA player who, basically, did the same thing as Mr. Rozier and now awaits federal sentencing. Porter’s attorney revealed that his client’s acute gambling addiction was what led to actions. Two prominent MLB pitchers were placed on leave at the end of this season as similar allegations involving their conduct are pursued. There is a flurry of similar ongoing investigations in professional and collegiate ranks. This is surely just the tip of the iceberg in terms of how gambling has corrupted sports.
More importantly, these athletes are among millions of Americans who are now struggling with gambling because of the inadequate regulation of a new product that is designed and delivered in a manner that will cause addiction in many users. Live betting using micro data, bonuses and nearly instant parlays open the door to the constant action that is closely associated with developing a gambling disorder. The corruption of sports is simply a symptom of rapidly growing mental health and public health crises brought on by inadequate regulation of an addictive product. This is a crisis that harms not only the users of gambling products, but also their family and friends.
Many in the gambling industry have pointed to these indictments as evidence that there is criminal activity outside of the state-licensed sportsbooks that operate subject to state regulation. The position of the industry is that efforts to erect regulatory guardrails that might impact the availability of gambling products will only drive customers to engage with criminal gambling enterprises which, by their very nature, are unregulated. The reality is that there is zero federal regulation and minimal state oversight conducted by a mix of state regulatory bodies with limited understanding of what their licensees are doing.
The Public Health Advocacy Institute (PHAI) is proud to be leading a national effort to bring a public health approach to online gambling to reduce the harm that it causes to the American people. PHAI does not seek to ban online sports gambling, but to make it safer through common sense regulation at both the state and federal levels. PHAI’s director of gambling policy, Dr. Harry Levant, outlined our approach in testimony delivered last year to the Senate Judiciary Committee, in support of the SAFE Bet Act, which would set minimum safety standard that states would need to meet in order to license sports gambling. The NBA gambling scandal is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of how new gambling products have contributed to the corruption of sports. But this erosion of the integrity of sports is itself just the tip of the iceberg in terms of the mental and public health impacts caused by woefully under-regulated sports gambling.