Hi-Yo Silver, Away
NBA Commissioner Adam Silver placed a big bet on legalized sports gambling. He didn't anticipate the alleged corruption that came with it.
This Week In Blunders – Oct. 19-25
“You cannot beat a roulette table unless you steal money from it.” –Albert Einstein
NBA Commissioner Adam Silver argued that legalizing sports betting would make sports betting less corrupt. What he didn’t understand – until maybe just this week – is that it would make basketball more corrupt.
And it allegedly has.
Chauncey Billups, coach of the Portland Trail Blazers, and Terry Rozier, guard for the Miami Heat, were arrested Thursday in an illegal gambling and poker-rigging probe.
Billups, 49, allegedly played in Mafia-rigged poker games and was indicted among 30 others. Rozier, 31, is accused of leaking insider info to sports bettors and even throwing games. Others were indicted as well, including former NBA player Damon Jones.
Read More: There’s No Such Thing As A Green Bank Or A Fair Game (Business Blunders)
In a now-infamous 2014 Op-Ed piece in The New York Times, Silver put forth the ol’ everybody-else-is-doing-it-so-why-can’t-we? Here’s what he wrote:
“Gambling has increasingly become a popular and accepted form of entertainment in the United States. Most states offer lotteries. Over half of them have legal casinos. Three have approved some form of Internet gambling, with others poised to follow.”
It made so much sense that just about every major sports league has since followed Silver’s march into legalized sports betting. In the past seven years, sports fans have reportedly placed a half trillion worth of bets.
Silver was right that gaming can be regulated to a large extent, but what has he done to keep coaches, players and other insiders from leaking information and possibly even throwing games?
The NBA did its own investigation of Rozier, for instance, and it cleared him. Nothing to see here folks. … But the FBI didn’t buy it.
Here’s what else Silver wrote in 2014:
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Business Blunders to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.