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The NBA, in reaction to the arrests of Miami guard Terry Rozier and Portland coach Chauncey Billups last week for their alleged role in gambling schemes, has started a review of how the league can protect not just the integrity of the game but its players and coaches as well.
The league made those revelations in a memo sent to all 30 teams, a copy of which was obtained by The Associated Press.
“Given the spread of legal betting to the majority of U.S. states, the recurrence of integrity issues across sports, and the emergence of novel betting formats and markets, this is an opportune time to carefully reassess how sports betting should be regulated and how sports leagues can best protect themselves, their players, and their fans,” read the memo, sent by the NBA’s legal department.
A pair of indictments were unsealed last week and nearly three dozen people — most notably, Billups and Rozier — were arrested by federal officials.
Rozier was arrested because federal officials allege he conspired with associates to help them win bets based on his statistical performance in a game played when he was with Charlotte on March 23, 2023. The charges are similar to what former Toronto player Jontay Porter faced before he was banned from the league by Commissioner Adam Silver in 2024.
Sportsbooks detected unusual patterns of wagers on the Charlotte game in question — prop bets involving Rozier were flagged and immediately brought to the NBA’s attention — and the league probed the matter but did not find enough evidence to conclude that Rozier broke any rules.
“While the unusual betting on Terry Rozier’s ‘unders’ in the March 2023 game was detected in real time because the bets were placed legally, we believe there is more that can be done from a legal/regulatory perspective to protect the integrity of the NBA and our affiliated leagues,” the league told its teams. “In particular, proposition bets on individual player performance involve heightened integrity concerns and require additional scrutiny.”
Among the things the league will take a look at: injury reports. The league publishes an injury report every hour, and teams are required to disclose statuses of players within certain windows of time before their next game. The NBA added the injury report several years ago in the interest of transparency.
The injury statuses can be used by bettors to decide which wagers to make — and if gamblers get that information before the rest of the public, it’s tantamount to insider trading. Former NBA player Damon Jones now faces charges because officials said he tipped off bettors about the health status of two Los Angeles Lakers players. The details in that indictment clearly show that Jones was discussing the availability of LeBron James and former Lakers center Anthony Davis with bettors before their statuses for certain games was known publicly. There is no indication that James or Davis had any knowledge of what Jones was alleged to be doing.
There were other examples of such tipping with other clubs, federal officials said.
“With sports betting now occupying such a significant part of the current sports landscape, every effort must be made to ensure that players, coaches, and other NBA personnel are fully aware of the dire risks that gambling can impose upon their careers and livelihoods; that our injury disclosure rules are appropriate; and that players are protected from harassment from bettors,” the memo said.
The league also said it is seeking input from teams, if they have any ideas on how to best proceed going forward.
Reporting by The Associated Press.
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