Reminder: legal betting didn’t cause this. It helped catch it.
A sitting head coach arrested is shocking, and huge news. Billips appears to be tied to Poker and the Mafia. Yikes.
Update: Former NBA player and current assistant coach Damon Jones has also been arrested
not surprised. i’d be surprised if more dudes don’t get caught.
I’ve been on the case of the jackass otherwise known as Adam Silver, whom ESPN has always protected much like they did his predecessor in a time before mainstream social media use (as in also people over about age 40 at the time), who did preside over a gambling scandal before sports betting was opened up for legalization nationwide, for a good long time, including in the latest post.
The NBA is NOT going to be cleaned up and move on for the better until Adam Silver and de facto co-commissioner Lebron James are finally gone from their current roles.
NBA commissioner Adam Silver, appearing on “The Pat McAfee Show” on Tuesday, said the league has been working with its sportsbook partners to combat attempts at manipulation.
“We’ve asked some of our partners to pull back some of the prop bets, especially when they’re on two-way players, guys who don’t have the same stake in the competition, where it’s too easy to manipulate something, which seems otherwise small and inconsequential to the overall score,” Silver said. “We’re trying to put in place – learning as we go and working with the betting companies – some additional control to prevent some of that manipulation.”
Look at the first phase of damage control via the old reliable lap dog ESPN here, with of course Disney with its own sports betting operation known as ESPN Bet.
Conflict of interest much, eh!?
Notice, as cited in the article, that Silver was aware of a prior investigation in March 2023 on Rozier. Gee, I wonder what kind of investigation that truly was, given the NBA’s reliable past to sweep matters under the rug?
Hey Adam Silver you MORON!
The reality is that most, if not all, of the prop bets based on individual player performance should be taken off the boards, for they are consistently easier for a single player to manipulate in especially basketball, as opposed to historically when players were caught shaving points scored by the team, which was more difficult to pull off.
There is definitely an argument against prop bets. A very valid one.
The flip side needs to be adults need to make adult decisions and have consequences for them .
Whilst true, the game has to be even for all and not rigged one way or the other, which can be done easily via most such prop bets based on individual players, and certain other kinds of bets.
It would get off topic, but I am also against certain types of ads that do not portray sports betting in a genuine light, which is basically not “it’s simply fun and only fun,” given the addictive nature of gambling and the risk of loss.
Such ads are akin to in another regulated industry, investments, portraying any “guaranteed returns of over X%” when in reality there is a risk of loss, which must be prominently disclosed by law.
Just because it’s gambling and with more risk and these are adults does NOT grant them an “entertainment pass” to just sugar-coat the matter, especially for the most gullible who are amongst the youth, whom they are principally targeting with such ads.
The gambling industry, and the likes of Adam Silver, are simply kicking the can down the road, for how did we get here as many foresaw including me, for the sake of stretching massive profits.
Here was a previous commentary I made about a problematic ad for FanDuel betting in Ontario in late 2023, which later I noticed also run in the US, but slightly altered with disclaimers.
Such disclaimers should be in EVERY edition of the same ad, but hey, those gambling firms push the envelope with what they can get away with despite the reality that they own a money machine.
Do it right, and they won’t be killing the golden goose at such rate.
…BUT, were the players and coaches made aware that gambling on their own sport was illegal,
Lemon tree very pretty, and the lemon flower is sweet,
But the fruit of the poor lemon is impossible to eat.
Wow was that an epic thread in CFL Forum history!
“But there was no sign posted in the locker room!”
Please, please, NOT AGAIN!
They might succeed papering over this one via the mainstream media after another exciting weekend of football, but I am inclined to believe otherwise, though there are plenty of dudes betting on phones so hooked now that the facts might not matter, for many of them age approximately 28 and under going back to that “daily fantasy sports” ruse, “there has always been legal sports betting.”
Would you bet on a WWE event? Of course not.
The problem is right now, there are an awful lot of dudes who would do so.
How did we get here? Michael Franzese, amongst others in the mob, has known all his adult life, and here he tells the tale as linked below.
Having done his time and retired, he can share a lot more than the mainstream media, with their vast interests in gambling firms and advertising, will likely do right now.
But you can better that this matter and the concerns go well beyond merely the NBA, especially with federal law enforcement well on the case now for others with the word well out.
Update Monday 27 October 2025
Oh yeah, the rabbit hole goes deeper this week, much as expected.
We know now from the indictment that this latest scheme had to begin with the 2022 NBA season and ran through 2024 regular season.
The Conspiracy
The indictment, unsealed in the Eastern District of New York, reads like the playbook of a financial fraud operation dressed up in jerseys. The six defendants. They include Eric Earnest, Marves Fairley, Shane Hennen, Damon Jones, Deniro Laster, and Terry Rozier are all charged with wire fraud conspiracy and money laundering conspiracy.
The scheme allegedly unfolded between December 2022 and March 2024, when the group exploited non-public NBA injury and lineup information to place fraudulent bets worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. They allegedly received insider tips directly from players and coaches, including Rozier and Jones, and then laundered the illicit profits through a web of intermediaries.
Remember Jontay Porter, banned from the NBA for life earlier here in 2025?
Oh yeah, he was not acting merely alone.
The Porter Connection: A Prequel to the Scandal
While not a named defendant in this indictment, Jontay Porter, formerly of the Toronto Raptors, looms large in the background. Porter had already pleaded guilty earlier in 2025 for his role in a similar insider-betting scheme, one that the DOJ now says was part of the same web of corruption. Porter allegedly told co-conspirators that he would intentionally leave games early due to “injuries,” allowing others to place bets on his underperformance. Those fraudulent bets paid out when he exited games on January 26 and March 20, 2024.
For compliance professionals, Porter’s earlier conviction was the canary in the coal mine, a warning that insider collusion in sports betting wasn’t a one-off anomaly. It was systemic risk spreading through the ecosystem.
And what did that jackass Commissioner Adam Silver do for purposes of reform after Porter’s conviction?
I’ll wait perhaps in vain to hear more than crickets.
Much more will come out before too long.
I have no doubt the NFL is very heavily all the more engaged with the Feds now to “smooth over any concerns” to try to get ahead of anything bursting, as for the NBA.
I think the biggest challenge will be via NCAA Pro Football, now that the athletes have so much more money with which they want to play in all ways as well, but this association with organized crime books and figures went on aplenty when they didn’t have money.
Somebody in management with the Ravens should be fired over the dreadful timing of this egregious error, which basically marched the entire NFL into the burning dumpster fire started by the NBA!