The arrests of Chauncey Billups and Terry Rozier in the federal investigation into sports betting and illegal gambling called into question how the NBA is working to protect its players from the dark side of the wagering world. And according to Boston Celtics forward Jaylen Brown, the league has not done enough in that regard.
Brown, who serves as a vice president of the National Basketball Players Association, lamented the lack of discourse between the league and its athletes about staying safe in the era of legalized sports betting. Whether it be the dangers of soliciting information to bettors or fans’ regrettable behavior towards players, Brown said there is ample work to be done in keeping players out of harm’s way.
“A lot more could have been done to help players and prepare players,” Brown said in his Friday pregame media availability. “But even in the aftermath, I don’t think little care or attention to detail goes into it. They’re like, ‘You make X amount of money or X, Y and Z, you should be able to deal with all the extra negativity, people approaching you about parlays. It creates a negative discourse around the game and players when people have money involved.”
Complicating matters is that the NBA has business partnerships with sportsbooks, which produce immense revenue from wagers made on the league’s games, teams and individual players. Commissioner Adam Silver called this week for stricter regulations on sports betting and said the NBA asked some of its partners to pull back on some of their player prop bet offerings in an attempt to prevent game manipulation.
“I don’t think once from my conversations with the union and the NBA has been like ‘How can we protect players more with the environment?'” Brown said. “There’s been little to no conversation about that. It’s all about ‘How can we increase business and increase revenue?’ I’m not sure if we’re having enough conversations about the aftermath or the consequences some of that stuff has.”
Billups and Rozier were among the more than 30 people arrested by the FBI as part of the investigation. Billups was allegedly connected with illegal high-stakes poker games, and Rozier was allegedly tied to a ring of current and former NBA players trading inside information with bettors.
“That whole world was introduced a couple of years ago, and I don’t think they took players into consideration, especially with the energy and the behavior that goes around gambling and how that directly correlates with players,” Brown said. “We don’t benefit from any of the profits or anything like that, but we gotta deal with a lot of the extra negativity and scrutiny behind all the gambling stuff. On top of that, it creates more integrity issues, et cetera. I’m not sure what the answer is going forward, but definitely something that people gotta spend more time having conversations about.”
Players do, in fact, benefit from shares of gambling-related revenue at the league level as it falls under the NBA’s basketball-related income umbrella. The league also asserts that it has protections in place to shield players from some of the issues Brown highlighted.
“Protecting the safety of players and coaches has always been of critical importance,” NBA spokesman Mike Bass said in a statement. “League security works with team officials and law enforcement to respond to any type of fan behavior that violates our code of conduct — whether that’s in our arenas or online. We have put safeguards in place, including social media monitoring, to track and mitigate any potential threats or safety risks. And we have increased communications to fans attending games to reinforce our code of conduct and emphasize that disrespectful and abusive behavior will not be tolerated.”
This is the NBA’s second major gambling scandal in the last two years. The league banned Jontay Porter in 2024 for his role in a scheme involving his prop bets.