No seriously. Let's bet on it. Let's bet on how many words will be in this post. Let's bet on how many ellipses I will use. Let's bet on everything!!!!
In case you haven't heard, the NBA has a pretty big public relations fiasco on their hands. Current player Terry Rozier and current head coach Chauncey Billups were arrested a couple of days ago in separate gambling stings.
Billups' case appears to have to do with his being a honeypot to attract gamblers to rigged poker games. Billups is going to fight the charges. So we will have to wait and see how that goes. But the one I am really interested in is the Rozier arrest.According to reports, The FBI arrested Rozier for giving non-public information to gamblers. Specifically they say that back on March 23, 2023 Rozier told some gamblers that he would not be playing the full game that night. This means that if they took the under on the game performance prop bets on Rozier that night, they would be guaranteed a win. Sports books actually noticed the betting irregularities that day and took the props off the board, but anyone who was already in could still win or lose. Of course those taking the under won as Rozier only played one quarter before leaving with a foot injury.
The most shocking thing about this is that it does not happen everyday. I can't think of a single easier bet to fix than a single player prop bet. These involve betting on a players game statistics including points, rebounds and assists. Because the numbers are set assuming a player is going to play a full game, it is so easy to fix them by doing what Rozier allegedly did... just play long enough for the bets to become locked in and then take yourself out of the game. You don't have to shave points. You don't have to make your team lose. All you have to do is say you twisted your ankle (which anyone can easily say any time they play an NBA game) and viola you end up with all of your stats ending up under the line.
Now why a guy who tricked the Charlotte Hornets into giving him a $96 million contract would take the risk of fixing a bet is beyond me. But I could easily see it for players making less money. Because it is so easy, I am shocked it doesn't happen every day. But this is the NBA's own fault. Back in 2014 NBA commissioner Adam Silver advocated to legalize sports betting. Once it was, he actually had the NBA partner with MGM as the official gambling partner of the NBA. Let that sink in. They partnered with a gambling platform. So the NBA has an incentive for their to be lots of betting on their sport. What did they think was going to happen? When you push gambling... gambling happens. And in gambling, the name of the game is to get a tiny edge to help you win. so is it really surprising that if someone could easily get a huge edge, they would take it?
And this problem is incredibly easy to fix (no pun intended). Just stop allowing player props. If a player wants to make some extra money gambling, make them shave points or cause their team to lose. That will be a lot easier to police as teammates will police their pals. Of course this will never happen as there is too much money to be made off of the player prop bets. They need hardworking people to lose their money gambling on whether or not Terry Rozier will score more than 12 points. For some weird reason, I still enjoy watching NBA basketball... but they sure aren't making it easy.