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The Justice Department, the FBI, and other federal agencies recently brought forward arrests and indictments against
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current and former NBA players and NBA coach as part of an illegal gambling case which has rocked the sports world
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at a time when gambling has become an important advertising partner for teams, leagues, and broadcast partners. So, how
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might the impact of this case impact not only the NBA, but leagues in general as
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we move forward? Rob Deji is a lecturer in the legal studies and business ethics
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department at the Wharton School who focuses on the cross-section of sports and business. Rob, great to talk to you
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again. How are you, sir? >> Always a pleasure. Nice speaking with you, Dan.
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>> Thank you. Uh look, this is obviously I think we need to distinguish this. You
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we have to separate this from the gambling that we see advertised on a lot of the uh on a lot of the sports
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broadcasts with some of these companies because there's an element of the criminal element the the families like
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Kosa Nostra as it was put by Cash Patel that is involved in this. >> Yeah, certainly. And they're definitely
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involved in the Chony Bilip side with the fixed poker games. uh and they have been involved for decades. Of course,
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it's only been in the last seven years or so that gambling has become not illegal in the United States and it's
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all being done state by state. And so, uh there's there's always going to be
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sports gambling and there's always going to be a nefarious element to it. The big
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difference now is the regulation that's possible state by state. the technology
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that allows you to identify uh strange uh patterns in sports gambling and the cooperation between the leagues and the
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um and the regulators to identify issues and get to them right away. Prior to it
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being legal gambling uh there that was all done in the dark and and you wouldn't find out for months after and
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after the damage was done. And seemingly with the case of Terry Roier, the player
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on the Miami Heat, it is, you know, how much he played in a game and what he did
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or did not do from a statistical end on that perspective that comes into a big play here. Uh, and he was investigated
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by the NBA, two years ago. They did not bring anything forward against him, but seemingly it feels like the the federal
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government may have a few more ways to kind of connect the dots here. Well, certainly they have a lot more power
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than just a private business like the NBA as far as subpoenas and accessing phone records and whatnot that the
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leagues can't do. He was cleared because there wasn't enough information to
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suspend him. But then after two years, so it's not as if the NB the FBI just
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took over and figured things out in a week. After two years, they came up with over 30 arrests AC across a wide network
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of people involved in this. Only three of them making it seem like it's not that big deal. It's only three NBA
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people, but three of the 30 uh have NBA ties. So, um the NBA is and all the other leagues are have spent have
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invested in integrity reinforcement or enforcement um aspects to to keep this type of thing to a minimum and jump on
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things when there are aberrations. But it seems like from the comments of David Stern uh recently uh there is a
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recognition that this is a concern and I guess they were working with the federal
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government helping them kind of move their case along and so I I guess the relationship between all of these
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leagues and the federal government is probably there as well. >> Definitely uh that security has moved
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beyond just physical security in the arenas and identifying these types of things. all the leagues have their
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ability to or are cooperating with both federal and state uh regula regulators to identify problems.
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>> I know you also wanted to talk about the component of prop bets which are
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obviously a concern I think for uh many sides of this uh story especially I guess including in the college athletic
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uh landscape. Yeah, I think colleges much more vulnerable because of the lack of uh or the lower dollar uh amounts
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that the players are getting paid if being paid at all. And it's not even just the athletes itself. A basketball
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player could go back and mention something to another student who's not at all on the team and could uh
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coordinate some kind of scheme in order to take advantage of insider information
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there. But prop bets are the ones that are most vulnerable to players manipulating without you know, in their
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mind significantly impacting the results of the game itself. Terry Roier, a bench
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player, so he only played five minutes. He didn't play his normal 22 minutes. Is
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that going to really make a difference in the outcome of the game? And I'm going to help somebody out here. I don't
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know if he's just looking to make a few 50 $50,000 on the side when you're
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making $26 million a year or a friend of his that says, "Please, you just got to
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help me out. All you got to do is come out of one game." and he's vulnerable to
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that kind of that kind of uh relationship. So, uh prop bets, whether missing a second foul shot, we've seen it in Major
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League Baseball with the two pitchers that were suspended. You know, the first pitch is going to be a ball or strike.
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Well, I can get away with throwing a ball here uh and still get this guy out. So, I I can um I can manipulate the
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markets a little bit more. And both Adam Silver and on I'm not sure about the
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other professional commissioners, but certainly Charlie Baker on the NCA are campaigning hard for regulations to be
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in place to eliminate prop bets because they're the most susceptible element to
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being manipulated. Challenge is with sports gambling being legal in 38 states, Puerto Rico and the District of
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Columbia, it's a state-by-state issue. It's not just one federal thing, and not
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everyone's necessarily going to get on board with changes. Still, the leagues
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really have to look at their processes in place to try and do whatever they can to eliminate this as much as possible. I
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don't know if you're ever going to be able to fully eliminate it, but you
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don't want to have instances like this where Chanty Bilips, the head coach of
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the Portland Trailblazers, is accused of, you know, working with uh, you know, working with entities that were running
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illegal uh, poker games, >> right? you certainly don't want them uh involved in in the darker sides of
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society. And the argument could be made, well, if they didn't have this and there
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was uh illegal gambling as it existed for years before 2018, uh there were many more things that were never
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uncovered. Now, we're able to get on top of these things right away. And there's
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two big incidents in the NBA in the last seven years. And maybe without this, there would be 10 or 20. Uh and so
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they're able to jump on it. They're certainly always examining ways to eliminate this as get it as close to
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poss to zero as possible, but in our hyperconnected world of social media and whatnot, the slightest infraction is
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going to be blown up tfold. How much how much also does this discussion need to include the question on player injuries
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and playing time? And you know, some of that information is held, you know, very
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tightly by the teams. Obviously, some leagues you have to give a report out in the NFL midweek. Uh but still it's it's
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a big concern here. >> Yeah, that's the usually that's done for competitive purposes, not to show any of
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your cards to your opponent in preparing. It just happened this weekend with Lamar Jackson and the Baltimore
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Ravens. He was cleared to play on Friday, but they changed their mind on Saturday. And so, uh that type of
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information has other ramifications, which is namely betting. And if there was something like someone manipulating
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that the communication channels for that to say we're not going to we we got some
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insider information that he isn't going to play but they're not going to say it
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till 3:00 on Saturday to protect to give the opponent as little time as possible
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to prepare. That also has the ramifications affecting the sports markets or the betting markets. So
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that's um that's certainly something that's continually being addressed.
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>> What needs to occur? What are we missing here? Or what are the leagues or the the
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the entities in this world missing that we need to have in place uh to to make this not as as much a concern as it is
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right now? >> Well, I don't know if it's any one thing, but the commitment to continual improvement.
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I think actually eliminating prop bets will help do this. I mean, if you eliminate prop bets, which the sports
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books are probably against because they're probably one of the more profitable areas. They're harder to do
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when you're when when everything's being un done on the up and up and you're not
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uh making a deal with a player to to do certain things. Um that will help eliminate or reduce the risk. You'll
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never completely go without it. Remember the Tim Donahe issue went on for years because he was in uh deep trouble with
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in his own gambling debts. Pete Rose issue uh going back to the 60s with Paul Hornig and he was just uh he was
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suspended for associating with hoodlams was the term all used. >> Um so uh this is always going to be
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something that you're on top of. I mean don't forget sports gambling has been
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legal in Europe for almost a century. Um, this is this is one of those risks and a lot of people making the
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comparisons to well they're selling alcohol and people are leaving games and
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getting in drunk driving accidents and the leagues are taking sponsorship money from the beer companies. Yeah, there's
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always there's nothing that is without risk and gambling is certainly the high
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profile thing because there's nothing more important to the league than the integrity of the contest. If you know in
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any way that the games are not done on the upper up and up in order for one side to win that there's some other
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motivation involved then you have nothing and that's where David Stern and Bud Celig before him and Paul Tagle and
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all the other commissioners of the previous generations were adamant against any kind of involvement. That's
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why you know the leagues all stayed away from a franchise or any kind of event in
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Las Vegas because Las Vegas was the host hub of gambling. And so now there's
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people raising questions and this just must might just be, you know, media people trying to get clicks. Should the
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NFL take its Super Bowl out of Las Vegas in 2029? Well, the vague the Raiders play there eight or nine times a year as
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it is. >> Yeah. >> And the and the Knights play there and the A's are going to play there. So, um,
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it's there's a lot of overreaction, I think, in the media to this whole issue.
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>> Rob, great to talk to you again. Thanks very much. All the best. >> Sure thing, Dan. Nice speaking to you as
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well. >> Thank you. Rob de Jesi who's a lecturer in the legal studies and business ethics
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department here at the work Are