This is wild
If there’s any saving grace for Billups it doesn’t appear he was involved in the basketball shenanigans. He was just a different kind of scumbag.
From the article…
In the first eight months of the year, Americans wagered nearly $100bn on sports through official channels, up roughly 12% compared to 2023, according to the American Gaming Association.
Wow.
I also saw that Terry Rozier’s salary in 2025 is right at $25 million. Apparently that wasn’t enough, he needed to make more from gambling.
I usually have ESPN on in the morning as background noise while I get ready for work. They were trying to cover it this morning, and I was just think how little I’m interested in hearing ESPN bemoan any gambling scandal as they cut to advertisements for their internal sportsbook, and then to the segment where they discuss the spread for this week’s college games and where the most interesting bets should be.
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“I think there should probably be more regulation on sports betting.. We’ve asked some of our partners to pull back on some of the prop bets” ~ Adam Silver
And with so many different prop bets it is so easy for guys to get caught up in it. Two of the Guardians best pitchers are currently suspended while they investigate and it wouldn’t be surprising if they never came back. The bets were around whether the first pitch of the inning would be a ball or strike and these guys were missing the planet when there was “suspicious activity” around the bets. So presumably big bets in particular for those innings and they made sure they were balls.
I just did a search on what bets you can place on Draft Kings for the NBA. The over/under on the player prop bets are perfect for being fixed. Every pro league is in bed with these guys. And then the leagues are shocked when people get caught up in it.
Prop bets (Proposition bets)
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Player Props: Bets on an individual player’s performance. Common examples include betting on whether a player will go over or under a set number for:
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Points scored
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Assists
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Rebounds
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Three-pointers made
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Combinations like points + rebounds + assists
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Achieving a double-double or triple-double
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Game Props: Wagers on specific events or team statistics that aren’t tied to the final score, such as:
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Which team will reach a certain point total first
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The total number of steals or blocks in a game
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Whether the game will go into overtime
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Quarter/Half Betting: Bets focused on the outcome of a specific portion of the game, like the first quarter moneyline, spread, or total.
I can’t imagine having so much money that I’m willing to lose it betting on something that I can’t control.
An old friend of mine married a guy who owned some oil boats in Louisiana. He was fairly well off. When the BP oil spill happened, it hurt his business. He mortgaged a number of properties to try to keep it going. He lost them all, But during that time, and well afterwards - he spent millions gambling at Casinos. He spent so much that some of the high-end casinos flew them (he and his wife) to Super Bowls and let them party in their sky boxes.
He never passed on an opportunity to gamble and pretty much lost almost everything. He died last year. His wife is living in a mobile home that she is making payments on because he spent all of his/their money.
I’m sure that there are some people who can control their gambling, but overall it hurts everyone but the bookmakers and the casino owners. I detest the fact that sports leagues are promoting it.
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I play a decent amount of poker. We used to have a regular home game before Ohio legalized casinos. And I have run across more than a couple people who just couldn’t control themselves.
There was a young guy who was pretty good. He was playing online and got on a great run. It was verified by several people that he had $200,000+ in his online accounts. He had caught the attention of some other players and was starting to be staked. He jumped up in stakes and just tanked. Burned through everything he had built up, maxed out a bunch of credit cards, started begging, borrowing, and stealing from everyone he could find. Acted like any other addict. Finally his parents had is younger brother move in, made sure there was no internet access in the house, etc.
It is wild to see. Most of the time it isn’t the winning or losing, it is just the thrill of being in a big hand/making a big bet. Another guy was big into sports gambling, even ran book himself a little bit. Every game you could find he would have money on.
I’m with you. I don’t get it. I like the competition part of it with poker but hate things like sports betting, it is just random chance.
I hate all the betting ads when I’m watching sports with my kids. On the upside - we’ve had lots of conversations about gambling/betting and how the house ALWAYS wins in the end.
I occasionally play poker with a group of guys who are big sports fans, and they are constantly making small wagers with each other, and online. $20 here, $100 there.
I don’t get it at all, and am definitely a bit of an odd man out in the group (I don’t watch or follow sports, barely drink, dont bet etc).
Blame this crap:
well that, and a ton of states caving in to the sports betting industry. Keep that shit in Nevada.
Add this to the list of reasons why I don’t watch the NBA. The integrity of the games was impacted, apparently.
The first case alleges six defendants used insider information and in some cases players altered their performances to manipulate bets
Might not be correct. He allegedly gave information on players that were not going to play in a game before it was public knowledge. They lost by 28 points.
Billups is from Denver and is looked at as sports royalty. By all accounts he’s a good guy, can’t imagine his reputation will come out the other end of this intact.
who cares… epstein files please 
kash patel really hyping this up.
i also echo the idiots who are scheming. rozier… unless he’s getting like 5+ million bucks a year doing this, it really makes no sense at his current income.
Unless the house is a Trump-owned casino…
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Just trying to teach my kids to keep their money. The oldest is risk averse. The young one is potential trouble…
So they’re getting charged for cheating in an illegal poker game? If they’d be charged the same exact way without the cheating I’m okay with it but additional charges for the cheating seems weird to me.
Illegal game + cheating seems quite a bit worse than just an illegal (but fair) game. One could argue that anyone playing in an illegal game accepts a heightened risk of being cheated, but that’s not a great defense to whoever actually does the cheating.