Ein Glücksspielskandal droht, Fans von der NBA zu vertreiben

You’re excused if you suddenly got a sinking feeling about the parlay you bet on tonight’s slate of NBA games.

You have every reason to feel skittish about laying a little action on the NBA considering that Thursday morning, just two days after the start of the 2025-26 regular season, the FBI arrested and charged Portland Trail Blazers head coach Chauncey Billups, former NBA player and coach Damon Jones and Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier in two separate indictments. Billups and Jones are accused of participating in rigged poker games that included involvement by mafia members. Jones and Rozier are accused of using insider knowledge about NBA teams and players to help people place bets. If that’s true, then it might be considered sports’ worst gambling scandal since former NBA referee Tim Donaghy pleaded guilty in 2007 to betting on games he officiated.

Actually, I take that back. If the government’s claims are true — that Rozier, Jones and others with insider knowledge about teams and players bet on games played by the Trail Blazers, Charlotte Hornets, Los Angeles Lakers, Orlando Magic and Toronto Raptors — then it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to call this the worst scandal in NBA history. It would also be one of the worst gambling scandals in American sports in at least a generation.

Read more: [https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/nba-gambling-investigation-sports-betting-chauncey-billups-rcna239357](https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/nba-gambling-investigation-sports-betting-chauncey-billups-rcna239357)

I recently discovered that Amazon Prime will have NBA games live this year here in the UK and was super excited about that. But this recent scandal as definitely dampended my excitement for it.

I haven’t trusted the NBA for decades. Ever since Donaghy and even before that, in 1985, when the knicks got the first round pick. It’s a business first.

Two things: First, if they’re betting cause they know somebody won’t play it’s different than doing shit to affect the outcome of a game on purpose. Second, if anyone had been betting on Portland to win jokes on them.