Blazers coach Chauncey Billups arrested by FBI for illegal gambling

[ryan in Maine]

6:45 Matt Berkey (poker player) knew as far back as 2019 that this game Billups was running was rigged. Pinhole camera placed in a phone sitting on the table catching images from underside of cards being dealt.

There's a longer version of just that pod about that game, I just can't find it.

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I was reading about their cheat tech and all i can think about is those "When keeping it real goes wrong" skits from Chappelle Show —

[Sedale Threatt]

I was late in adding it to the previous post but I'll also refer to the case of Vince Carter supposedly telling his opponents when he was trying to get traded from the Raptors what his coach's plan was.

I think being fired is usually sufficient. The creeping criminalization of everything is a larger worry.

Match fixing has always been illegal. It's not a new thing.

In how many of those cases was gambling not involved? The match fixing is a symptom. The underlying cause is gambling.

Of course. Scandals like this are going to happen whether it's legal or not, because people have always gambled whether it's legal or not. The Black Sox, the big college basketball sht storm in the 1950s, Pete Rose ... on and on.

Will there be an increase in instances now with legalization? Absolutely, which we are already seeing. I came across an article today that listed all the athletes who have already done stuff like this and I was shocked how many there have been in less than a decade. Now this, and the NCAA just recently ruled that athletes can now gamble as well. So buckle up for that.

But we are already through the looking glass there so I'm not even sure what you are arguing at this point. Sports gambling is legal, professional leagues are all raking in huge money in sponsorship deals and, unless the government decides otherwise, it's not going anywhere. Given the state of bribery, er, lobbying in the United States, it likely never will.

The bottom line, it is and always has been a federal crime to rig games, for patently obvious reasons that even a 5-year-old could probably grasp, and with the current climate it needs to be enforced now more than ever before. Otherwise we're just watching pro wrestling, which a lot of conspiracy theorists already believe is the case.

[TimberKat]

I never gamble online or bet on sports, if there is wager on individual performance before the game starts, isn't that the root cause? It is something that any gambler would want to hack which put the players/league in a vulnerable position. I am sure there will always be leaks and rumors of how bad a player's injury is by friends/associates. The fix really should be what/when one can bet on, like you can only bet on greyhound/horse race when the actual race is about to start (I think that is true in US).

[Ssj16]

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[Gordon]

It is unfortunate that all these podcasts like Bill Simmons and Zach Lowe are sponsored by the betting companies, so they cannot talk sincerely how betting is ruining the league.