When the news broke on October 23, 2025 that Chauncey Billups, head coach of the Portland Trail Blazers, and Terry Rozier, guard for the Miami Heat, were arrested as part of a sprawling federal investigation into illegal poker and sports betting schemes, the sports gambling world took notice. Billups, a Hall of Famer was arrested in Oregon and will go to court to face charges in Brooklyn. Rozier was detained in Orlando in a separate but connected matter involving giving inside information to gamblers. In total, more than 30 individuals were indicted as part of the probe.
What makes this scandal so troubling and historically significant is that it touches two key dimensions long feared in professional sports history. The co-mingling of athlete/coach access and gambling interests along with the infiltration of illegal, unregulated gambling rings into what should be clean competition. As someone who has studied decades of sports gambling scandals, I see this moment as a wakeup call. With sports betting now legal in many jurisdictions, have we opened the door to a recurring problem rather than closed it?
The allegations in this case span rigged poker games tied to organized crime networks, sports betting prop irregularities and insiders with access. According to court filings, Billups and others were implicated in a poker operation backed by Mafia families, while Rozier’s arrest is part of an inquiry into sports betting conspiracies. Neither the league nor the teams expected to see coaches or current players drawn into such sweeping indictments, which amplifies the gravity of the issue.
Now let’s ask the bigger question, does the legalization of sports betting in markets across the U.S. make this kind of scandal more likely to become ordinary rather than the exception? My answer, regrettably, is yes, unless far stronger controls and cultural shifts are implemented.
Here’s why. First, the scale of legal sports betting means far more money is moving through the system, more eyes on odds, more temptation for those with inside access or influence over outcomes. That means the incentive for manipulation is bigger. Second, the speed and ease of modern wagering (mobile apps, global access) means that bad actors can move quickly, hedge bets, obfuscate trails. Third, the regulatory and oversight mechanisms have not yet caught up with the new realities. If athletes or coaches believe they can profit illicitly outside the regulated systems, the incentive is high. History tells us this, the infamous college basketball point-shaving scandals of the 1950s and 60s were triggered by limited oversight and escalating gambling interest. My good friend Frank Rosenthal once said he could fix any college game in two hours at a cost of 10k and make 250K.
In the present case, the existence of an illegal poker ring working parallel to the sport betting ecosystem underscores the risk. Even in a world where betting is legal, when operations fall outside regulation like underground poker rooms or prop bets placed with inside information, the damage remains. And for leagues like the NBA, which trade heavily on integrity and competitive fairness, the reputational cost is enormous.
So will this become common? I believe we are at a crossroads. If systems fail to adapt, if athlete education is lax, if monitoring of odd betting patterns is weak, if the underground flows continue unchecked, then yes, we may see these kinds of arrests frequently. But if sports leagues, regulators and law enforcement treat this as a watershed moment and act aggressively by implementing transparent tracking, severing underground networks, aggressively policing insider access then we might contain the threat. I unfortunately think that is doubtful especially in the college games.
For now, the Billups/Rozier indictments represent more than just a headline. They are a signal to every athlete, every coach, every gambler that the game has changed. Betting is legal. But the dark side remains very real. And unless the safeguards are robust, the scandal that once seemed an outlier may well become a recurring theme.
In short, the legalization of sports betting was meant to bring regulation and transparency. But without vigilant oversight and cultural change, it may simply have raised the stakes for the next chapter in sports gambling scandals.