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You're right. Ready? Set. Ford. Let's bring in Ian O'Connor, one of this country's finalists, finest writers and authors.
He's a columnist at the Athletic, six-time New York Times bestseller. And we talked to Ian to get a perspective on how big. This betting scandal could be and is. Ian, your reaction to the presser yesterday. and what has happened since.
Brian, I was there in two thousand seven at the press conference when David Stern was dealing with the Tim Donaghy scandal, the referee who bet on games. And I thought that was the end of the world. And I remember looking at David Cern, and he just had this appearance of a totally broken man. I didn't get a chance to see Adam Silver yesterday. To me, this is worse.
For him to be I would have liked to have seen his face as he watched that FBI press conference, Cash Patel, and rattling off The notorious climb families and their association with the NBA. And Now this is as ugly and as bad as it gets. And I think it was predictable. I don't think this is the last scandal we'll see in professional sports by a long shot. And yeah, this was inevitable ever since the Supreme Court overturned the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act of 1992.
back in 2018. And I do not think this is the end of this story.
So, Ian, with Adam Silva was saying on Tuesday, clearly he got tipped off that this was going on, and Rozier has been targeted since 2023.
So, he said he was cooperating and was surprised to be arrested.
So, they've been doing this investigation.
So he says, We got to limit the prop bets. You know, it's bad enough you got point spreads that people can mess it up with by hit a few air balls. Or the best player being out of a game, or whatever have you, where obviously a referee can have the biggest impact. Perhaps. But The prop bets.
Oh, I think you're a role player and you think you're going to play 15 minutes or score a certain amount. You have this guy row zero, averaged 20 points a game, and then he predicted that he would go under, so they bet under on him in a meaningless game, Pelicans and Hornets, and suddenly people are cashing in on it.
So if you eliminate prop bets, would that help anything? Yeah. it would definitely help Brian without question. I think the sports commissioners would love to see Prop eds go away. But I have to say, beyond prop bets, it's when you look at some of the allegations in the indictments.
and you're talking about a head coach in Chauncey Billops who is alleged to have given information to Betters that was not available to the public about starters who are not going to play in a certain game. It doesn't really get much worse than that. And then you have Damon Jones, with connections to LeBron James, maybe the greatest player in the history of the league, or certainly one of the top two or three. And if I'm LeBron James, I am furious this morning that my name is associated with this case in any way. And my understanding is, there's absolutely no evidence of him being involved in any wrongdoing, yet, his name is linked to this case.
via Damon Jones.
So, when you have a player, or former player, and a volunteer assistant coach of the most glamorous franchise in professional sports in the Lakers. Giving information to bettors that an all-time great is not playing in a game, that information is not available to the public at the time. That is really Ugly stuff, and I think that. Yes, I don't know. Usually when I write a column about societal ills, Brian, I try to offer a solution.
I don't know if there's a solution here. I think this genie with legalized sports betting is so far out of the bottle There is no putting it back. But look at the people advertising. And I'm not saying they're at fault, but Kevin Hart, Shaquille O'Neal, John Hamm, they're advertising for DraftKings and others to bet. And what are they saying on all the scoreboard shows?
Hey, this is my pick of the week, and this is the spread, and I think they're going to go over, and I think they're going to go under.
Now, you and I grew up with Jimmy the Greek, and we thought the odds, that was bending practicality when he was talking about the odds and betting, and he was known as a legendary better. But now it's part of everything. I mean, yesterday, ESPN didn't cover it on their normal channel, but they covered it on the. their betting show. They've, to their credit, they did a real expose for about 20, 25 minutes on how this went down and what the ramifications were.
But a lot of these. Outlets pay zillions of dollars for the rights to these leagues, and they're afraid of covering this story. Aren't they? Yeah, and listen, I have to say, Brian, my employer at the athletic, has a deal with a gambling company, and obviously ESPN, you have ESPN Bet now, and all the leagues are. Have all these agreements with gambling companies, with casinos, teams have individual deals with casinos and So there's that message that's being sent, which is in conflict with the message of betting on sports or R sport is bad.
And I do think the vast majority of people who bet do it the right way. But you're always going to have people who Break the law. And do what is being alleged here. That kind of behavior is something that I don't think is going to disappear.
Now, back in 2007 with the Donaghy case. I did think That would be a scared straight moment. That changed things in sports, and guess what it didn't? And I think this might act as a deterrent for a while. But five, six, seven years down the road, I would be pretty sure.
Surprised if there's not another gambling scandal to come in professional sports. I just think it's something you can't completely police and manage. And we should tell people this: the card scandal involving. Uh John C. Billops, and he might be involved in the other one sitting certain people at certain times.
That's pretty amazing. Those are some of the allegations. And then there's got the one with giving inside information or perhaps as a player You know, the faking an ankle injury, and people bet the under on how much you're going to score, and then they sit out and people cash in. But Cash Patel talked about how big this got and how serious it got. Cut eight.
They literally had scanners at the poker tables where they literally had professional athletes in the NBA walk off the court so their proposition bets could be met. It is a coordinated scheme with La Casa Nostra and the individuals that we arrested today. And it's been going on for some time. And we are going to continue to work this investigation and those that have been arrested today to make sure that illegal gambling empires embedded with the La Casa Nostra are brought down, whether in the NBA or anywhere else. You got four mob families.
I mean, four mob families. Number one, still out there. You know, no longer in the Godfather sequels, but they're still out there thriving and all over this. Help! The only crime family not mentioned was the Soprano crime family.
Yes. And it was jarring really to listen to that, to watch it. And again, if you're Adam Silver. and you hear those names associated with your product, What are you thinking? And this is as bad as it gets.
And I do think it's worse than the Donaghy case back in 2007, without question. And I don't know, I look at you you mentioned Terry Rozier. It's easier for a fringe player. Say a John Tay Porter, maybe the two, although he was eventually prosecuted in that case, yeah. And and so, but he was a fringe NBA player.
Terry Rozier has been a very good player in the NBA who's averaged twenty point four five seasons And so it's not just the player who's occasionally in the NBA, also in the G League going back and forth on a two-way contract. These are serious allegations against the real public. Player in the NBA. And yes, I think it is beyond alarming.
So do you think it could grow? Do you think we should be could have names added to this? I do. I hate to say that. I think when you have, what, thirty-four people arrested, you're going to get different degrees of cooperation in this.
case as it goes forward and I frankly am not going to be shocked by too much in sports anymore, having covered it for 40 years. But I at this point would be shocked if this doesn't grow. I think that I don't know if it's the tip of the iceberg. I don't think it's the full iceberg. I would say it might be half the iceberg.
And so I would expect more developments to come.
So, the whole thing is, too, with the card game and Chauncey Billup, this was picked out by a guy named Matt Berkeley. I don't know the professional poker player world. I see it all over ESPN and Fox and whatever. You know, for some people, everyone thinks that's a sport. But listen to what he said on a podcast a couple of years ago about Chauncey Billups, Cut 10.
This must have been like five years ago, 2019-ish, I think, four years ago. Um where there was this game It started in LA and then it came to Vegas for a few days and it was all built around Chauncey Billips. And I had heard about the game. And the person who told me about it was like, Look, I know the game runners. I'm telling you 100% this game is on the up and up.
And I was like, well, I. Know a lot of the people that are involved, and I'm telling you 100% that it is not on the up and up. And uh you know we kinda went back and forth and I agreed that like I just wasn't gonna go play it, but I I had some friends who went and played it both in LA and in Vegas. And It obviously like was For sure, confirmed to be cheated. Like people who clearly didn't even understand the rules of no limit hold'em.
are just like jamming hundreds of big blinds in With like a gutty and then just drilling it to guys were losing millions. The pros are losing. Yeah, the the guys were the pros were losing millions to guys that were novices, and Billips was at the game.
So, this is unbelievable that he would waste his time like this. He's a Hall of Fame player who made hundreds, tens of millions of dollars as a player, and now making it as a coach. Yeah, and And, you know, I do think, Brian, that the NBA is a lot less concerned about those illegal poker games that were rigged by mobsters, as bad as that.
Sounds. Extorted. You know, so information that's being traded. Uh, for the sake of illegal sports betting, that is a bigger deal to the NBA right now. And I think one question that needs to be asked of Adam Silver is: what happened to your?
investigation of Terry Rozier. The NBA found no wrongdoing And then here we have what happened yesterday. Why did you find no wrongdoing with Rozier's behavior? And why, by the way, after that game in 2023, was he inactive? for the next seven, eight, nine games.
Uh Adam Silver has a lot of questions, a lot of very difficult questions to answer here. To me, starting with that Rosier investigation by the league and why it turned up. No wrongdoing. Could one of the things I'm saying, well, the FBI was investigating, so we wanted to let them do their job. Is that a good excuse?
No. And and in fairness, the FBI does have more investigative uh powers than the NBA. But again, the league found no wrongdoing, and the sports book apparently flagged. that March 2023 game in question right away.
So I it just seemed to me that it was Fairly obvious looking at the evidence we're seeing that was presented yesterday in the press conference.
Something uh went on there that that needed Further investigation, the MBA did that investigation and came up empty. Why did you come up empty? Did you want to come up empty? And so I think that those are very difficult questions that Silver will have to face. And the thing is about the integrity of the game, that's what they always told us about the Pete Rose scandal.
If people don't believe the game's on the up and up, the whole game falls apart. That was the White Sox scandal, the Black Sox scandal. And now we have a situation where Pete Rose in his last date is like, wait a second, now everybody's betting.
Now people are advertising that they're betting. Remember, at one point, Mickey Mantle and Willie Mays were banned from baseball because they agreed to be greeters at a casino. That's how much things, and they were afraid to put any franchise in Las Vegas.
Now they're going to have baseball, and they have football, and I'm sure they're going to get basketball. They have hockey. That's right. Things were different back then. I remember when my father used to bring home from work betting slips.
from some bookie somewhere. And it was I was a kid, I might have been eight years old, putting down three dollars to try to win twenty dollars on Monday Night Football. That was the extent of my gambling experience. outside of an NCA tournament pool or a Superbowl pool. And this is why I stay away from it.
Really, it's I have absolutely no interest in gambling and getting involved with any of these. Uh, online sites, and I think I know from my son, I don't know about yours, uh, Brian, but. Kyle has told me about his friends who are constantly on their phones replacing bets. And so it is so ingrained in American culture right now I really don't know what the solution is. Y'all can see a prohibition of of gambling uh at any point.
And so I just think the leagues have to do a better job monitoring this, and that's why I bring up the NBA's investigation of Rozier. and the question of why nothing was found there. And you got Shio O'Neill, Charles Barkley, everybody weighing in, just ripping these players for what they did. And by the way, just to be clear on the record, Ian O'Connor, son Kyle, and my son were roommates in college. I went to the Falk School in Syracuse.
So they were big-time sports fans. And I asked Brian the same thing: I go, Brian, betting? He goes, everybody, all the time on everything. And then I asked everybody here in their 20s and 30s, especially, they go, everybody bets.
So it is now part of America's culture, for better or for worse. I knew it was going to be a problem, but it's impossible to put it back, the genie back in the bottle. Ian, thanks so much. I know you'll be writing columns on this. My pleasure is over.
Always Brian, you're the best. Thank you. It's Will Tain Country. Watch it live at noon Eastern Monday through Thursday at FoxNews.com or on the Fox News YouTube channel. And don't miss the show.
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