NBA, Rozier and the betting interceptions

Those who are in the business or those who bet regularly admit it without problems. “Too easy, with individual plays.” Yep, too easy. Especially if you know someone who is part of that world. In NBA basketball, you can bet on every item in the statistics. Team or individual. Points, assists, fouls, 3-pointers, steals, turnovers. Anything that fills the stat sheet. The wiretaps made public by the New York Times are emblematic, involving Rozier and other defendants in the investigation which on Thursday alone led to over 30 arrests in America.

THE GAME

—

Terry Rozier, at the time one of the key players for the Charlotte Hornets, speaks on the phone with another defendant about a game against the New Orleans Pelicans on March 23, 2023. “Look, against the Pelicans I play for a maximum of 10 minutes, then I’ll say I have pain in my foot, I’ll go out and never come back. Everyone played under on me.” For those who are not bettors: if a play involves an over 15.5 points, if you bet on the under you think that Rozier will score less than 16 points. The reports of the investigation certainly cannot explain what drives a player who has earned 160 million dollars in his career to do something like this. The fact is that the tip expands in a short time. The friend, who first got the tip about the player, shares it with a third person in exchange for $100,000. The third person in turn resells it, in exchange for a percentage of the winnings. Furthermore, Rozier makes another serious mistake by sharing the information with relatives and close friends. It doesn’t take a genius to understand that that flow of bets, of several hundred thousand dollars on the unders, arouses the suspicion of those in charge, triggering the fuse that exploded today in the USA.

COUNTING DOLLARS

—

Obviously, Rozier plays that game and leaves after a quarter. We will find him again on the night of April 1, 2023, intent on counting the winnings together with the first person to whom Terry had sold the information. Easy money. Too easy. Which, however, thanks to the investigative activity of the NBA and FBI, will likely cost Rozier what was left of his NBA career.