Courtesy of Sean Meagher/The Oregonian
On the morning of Oct. 23, former Portland Trail Blazers head coach and NBA Hall of Famer Chauncey Billups was arrested on federal charges of wire fraud conspiracy and money laundering conspiracy. The indictment comes with matching charges for Miami Heat point guard Terry Rozier, as well as former Cleveland Cavaliers assistant coach Damon Jones.
According to the Department of Justice, the arrests were conducted as part of a years-long inquiry into professional basketball and La Cosa Nostra — colloquially known as the Mafia. The DOJ alleges that Billups would host rigged poker games backed by the Mafia, while Rozier and Jones would act to alter prop bets. Prop bets, short for proposition bets, are wagers on a specific event or statistic within a game that are not directly tied to the final score or outcome, such as points and assists.
Journalist Pablo Torre, who broke the story, has also indicated that someone matching Billups’ description was involved in providing privileged information to betters, such as who he would play in a given game.
According to reports, Rozier would alter his play in games to impact certain bets, while Jones would give private details on the starting lineup — which are unknown to the public — to certain betters. While it is not yet known how these incidents are all connected, it marks potentially the largest gambling scandal in professional sports history. Currently, 34 arrests have been made in connection to the events.
While gambling and sports have had a relationship going back decades, the recent rise of prop betting has created some concern that gambling has taken over the sports world. Ads for betting are everywhere, on every broadcast, for every game. On ESPN, the announcement of the arrests had an advertisement for gambling at the bottom of the screen.
These arrests, though significant, are not the first NBA arrests related to gambling. Just last year, Toronto Raptors player Jontay Porter pled guilty to charges of wire fraud for his part in a scheme to leave games with fake injuries in order to alter prop bets.
To better understand the impacts of this scandal on basketball fans at Lewis & Clark, The Mossy Log gauged student reactions. Some fans expressed dissatisfaction with the state of gambling in the league as a whole.
“It’s like a literal pandemic. It’s spread to all corners. What’s the craziest to me is like, even the NBA itself promotes gambling. And, their sponsors are, I don’t know, DraftKings or FanDuel. It’s just insane,” Uri Boaz ’27 said.
Ishaan Ayer ’28, a self-professed gambler and NBA fan, expressed a similar sentiment.
“The league has been so corrupted by gambling. It’s almost unfun to watch at this point,” Ayer said.
When asked if he saw an end in sight for the influence of sports gambling, Ayer expressed that to him, too much money is involved.
“There’s just so much damn money in it. Like, as soon as it was legalized, all bets were off, you know. There’s enough money in it. There’s no way that ethics or watchability is going to override that. If it got to the point where it was hindering viewership to a serious extent, that I’m sure they’d do something about. But until it stops making sense money-wise, it’s not going to change,” he said.
Both Ayer and Boaz say that the arrests have not undermined their confidence in the league. However, another student, Visagan Sundarasan ’27, said that his confidence in the league rides on how severe the punishment is. Sundarasan also said the punishments will determine whether or not the league sees a scandal like this again.
“As for whether scandals like these are inevitable, I don’t think they are and the punishments that the league decides to give out to everyone involved determines that. My trust in the league going forward definitely rests upon that too,” Sandarasan said.
On a recent episode of the Colin Cowherd podcast, guest and sportswriter Danny Parkins wondered aloud whether or not Billups should be thrown out of the Hall of Fame, saying that it was “on the table.” While Ayer and Boaz said they would not go so far in the punishment, Sandarasan said that serious bans were needed.
“Everyone involved should get a lifetime ban, not just to protect the league and its reputation, but also because ultimately sportspeople are role models for a lot of the population and they should be held accountable for their actions and removed from positions if required,” Sandarasan added.
Despite the arrests, Boaz thinks the absence of Billups could be a benefit for the team.
“As someone who enjoys Blazers basketball, though, I can’t lie, I’m a little happy that Chauncey got arrested, not that he got arrested, but that he’s not coaching anymore,” Boaz said.
Since Billups’ departure, NBA veteran and Trail Blazers assistant coach, Tiago Splitter, has been named acting head coach. In the games played since the Oct. 23 arrests, the Trail Blazers have played well, with wins against contending teams like the Golden State Warriors and Denver Nuggets. The Trail Blazers also handed the reigning NBA champion, the Oklahoma City Thunder, their first loss of the season. As a top eight seed in the Western Conference, there are even some playoff hopes for this roster.
For now, the arrests of Billups, Rozier and Jones mark a major turning point in the NBA’s ongoing struggle to balance the rise of legalized sports betting with maintaining the integrity of the game. As investigations continue, the league faces growing pressure to demonstrate accountability and restore public trust. The scandal leaves fans waiting to see whether this event will prompt real change, or simply become another chapter in basketball’s complicated and growing relationship with gambling.
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