Sports Gambling: Because a $96,000,000 contract wasn’t enough

Statistics and Sports go hand in hand. Where statistics are regarded as a fair and objective way to compare player. However, we see an ever increasing use of statistics in sports, in a more nefarious way... Gambling. Companies and people put money on the line to try and predict if a player will score more or less points in a game, if a team will end the season as champions, or even if a referee decides to call a foul or not. While it may seem like a niche, it is a rather lucrative industry to get into for the companies who can make it big, given the $13.7 Billion of revenue in the US for 2024 alone, with other countries having large amounts of money circulating within this field.

While seemingly harmless, it opens the door for many nefarious plays, all for the sake of extra cash lining athlete’s pockets. Recently, Terry Rozier and Chauncey Billups, two very well-known individuals within the NBA sphere, were arrested by the FBI for sports gambling, benefitting from games they had active control over. This is, in spite of the pay they were receiving, with Rozier getting paid $26 Million, and Billups $4.7 Million, over the past season. Despite what it may seem, this is not even the first time a player has been caught with gambling on games in the past few years. In 2024, Jontay Porter of my beloved Toronto Raptors was caught deliberately ruling himself out of games in order for his relatives and friends to actively benefit, by deliberately betting large amounts that he would not reach certain levels during any individual match, known as taking an under. Furthermore, it’s more than just players and coaches involved in this behaviour. In 2007, Referee Tim Donaghy was caught red-handed betting on matches he had direct control over, and subsequently was imprisoned after an investigation by the FBI.

While examples here may seemingly just be from the NBA, this isn’t an isolated incident from just this sport. 2023 saw Lucas Paqueta, a West Ham midfielder, be accused of deliberately obtaining yellow cards in order to ensure his peers profit from his gambling. While the charges were later dropped as there was insufficient evidence, there is no reason to suggest why this was an isolated incident, given the lucrative amount of money involved in sports gambling.

In spite of these issues, every sport seems to include gambling more and more. In the NBA, FanDuel and DraftKings are official sponsors of the NBA, and across the continent of Europe, two-thirds of teams have some form of gambling affiliation, including 55% of premiere league teams. For an industry so deadset on preventing gambling amongst players, ensuring that players don’t profit from such gambles, they seem to be unable to escape the allure themselves.

Current regulations say that those who are affiliated with major sports regulation in some way are only disallowed within the context of their own league. However, all it takes is 2 degrees of separation and someone with a bit more common sense to completely rig the whole affair. If you knew a person who was friends with a professional athlete, you’d have created enough separation to ensure that the trace could never come back to you. As long as you don’t invest a substantial amount of money to where it becomes suspicious when you eventually win big, no authority would even start suspecting you.

This isn’t the first time sports is mired in a world of controversy, after all, most older sports fans are going to know of the Calciopoli, the Italian scandal from 2006, where numerous clubs were caught fixing matches. The more gambling becomes normalised and players continue to gamble on games, whether directly or otherwise, the more the game will feel less like a sporting event and more like scripted entertainment, akin to that of reality tv.

If we’re being completely honest with ourselves, this practice needs to stop. Sports was never meant to be scripted. Sports fans are going to remember the joys that were the 2011 Dallas Mavericks, the 2016 Leicester City’s, or the 2024 Bayer Leverkusen’s, where the thrill came in watching every match they were playing. The more this is normalised, the more people take gambles, the more all the sports we know and love become less of an event to look forward to and an event where we just guess who took the most bribes and if the results of the very match we’re watching was over before it's even begun

Sources:

American Gaming Association. (2025, February 20). U.S. sports betting industry posts record $13.7 B revenue for ’24. Sports Business Journal. https://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/Articles/2025/02/20/us-sports-betting-industry-posts-record-13-7b-revenue-for-24

Greenberg, D. (2025, February 19). U.S. sports betting industry posts record $13.71 billion in revenue for 2024. ESPN. https://www.espn.com/betting/story/_/id/43922129/us-sports-betting-industry-posts-record-137b-revenue-24

Grand View Research. (2025). U.S. sports betting market size & outlook, 2030. https://www.grandviewresearch.com/horizon/outlook/sports-betting-market/united-states

Reuters. (2025, October 23). NBA’s Chauncey Billups, Terry Rozier among dozens arrested in illegal gambling probe. Reuters. https://www.reuters.com/sports/nbas-terry-rozier-chauncey-billups-arrested-sports-bet-probe-ap-reports-2025-10-23

The Guardian. (2025, October 24). NBA gambling scandal shines harsh light on U.S. sports’ embrace of betting. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2025/oct/24/nba-gambling-scandal-sports-betting

People Magazine. (2025, October 25). Mafia’s alleged gambling scheme involving NBA coach and players used X-ray card tables to steal millions: FBI. People. https://people.com/alleged-mafia-gambling-scheme-involving-nba-coach-players-used-x-ray-card-tables-11836498

CNBC. (2018, May 24). Former NBA ref from betting scandal warns on legal sports gambling. CNBC. https://www.cnbc.com/2018/05/24/former-nba-ref-from-betting-scandal-warns-legal-sports-gambling.html

Sky Sports. (2008, July 30). NBA: Jail for gambling ref. Sky Sports. https://www.skysports.com/more-sports/news/3885792/nba-jail-for-gambling-ref