Two sweeping federal indictments have implicated big names in basketball and raised uncomfortable questions about who benefits from legalized gambling
The NBA gambling scandal is the biggest story of the year in US sports, a culmination of the years-long embrace between professional leagues and the multibillion-dollar gambling industry that has now crossed the line from synergy into scandal.
In two sweeping federal indictments unsealed in Brooklyn on Thursday, prosecutors charged more than 30 people – including the Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier, Portland Trail Blazers coach Chauncey Billups and former NBA player and assistant Damon Jones – with schemes that turned inside information and rigged card games into engines of profit for organized crime.
Federal officials dubbed the twin takedowns Operation Nothing But Bet and Operation Royal Flush, likening the sprawl of defendants and their aliases to something out of a Scorsese film.
It’s the most significant corruption crisis to hit a major American league since betting was legalized in most US states, and the most revealing picture yet of how deeply gambling has fused itself into the bloodstream of professional sports.
