{"id":328766,"date":"2025-10-24T09:23:13","date_gmt":"2025-10-24T09:23:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/328766\/"},"modified":"2025-10-24T09:23:13","modified_gmt":"2025-10-24T09:23:13","slug":"shaq-weighs-in-on-nba-betting-scandal-after-34-arrests-youre-making-9m-how-much-more-do-you-need","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/328766\/","title":{"rendered":"Shaq weighs in on NBA betting scandal after 34 arrests: \u2018You\u2019re making $9m – how much more do you need?\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

A solemn Shaquille O\u2019Neal<\/a> weighed in on the NBA sports betting scandal<\/a> on Thursday night, saying he was \u201cashamed\u201d on behalf of the basketball stars named among the 34 people arrested by the FBI<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Miami Heat<\/a> guard Terry Rozier, Portland Trail Blazers<\/a> head coach Chauncey Billups and the retired combo guard Damon Jones were among those picked up by the bureau, with 13 alleged members of the Mafia also placed in cuffs<\/a> in response to a two-part scam that FBI Director Kash Patel<\/a> described as \u201cmind-boggling\u201d and said amounted to \u201cthe insider trading saga for the NBA.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Responding on ESPN\u2019s Inside the NBA, Shaq said<\/a>: \u201cAll these guys knew what was at stake and I\u2019m just ashamed that they put themselves and their family and the NBA in this position.<\/p>\n

\"NBA<\/p>\n

NBA legend Shaquille O\u2019Neal delivers a frank assessment of the sports betting scandal that has rocked professional basketball on ESPN’s Inside the NBA on Thursday October 23 2025 (ESPN)<\/p>\n

\u201cWe all know the rules, we all know the letter of the law and it\u2019s just unfortunate. Innocent until proven guilty, but usually when the FBI has something, they have you. They\u2019ll wait two, three, four, five years, but when they come knocking on your door, they have something.\u201d<\/p>\n

He continued: \u201cWe all know the letter of the law when it comes to gambling and sports gambling and I don\u2019t want to sit up here like I\u2019m some perfect guy\u2026 Every now and then, when I go to Vegas, I\u2019ll play some craps and I\u2019ll play some roulette but I never gambled at anyone\u2019s house. Don\u2019t know anything about poker.<\/p>\n

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\u201cI\u2019m ashamed that those guys would put their families and their careers in jeopardy. There\u2019s an old saying in the \u2018hood: \u2018All money ain\u2019t good money.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cSo if you\u2019re making $9 million and you\u2019re dealing a certain thing, like, how much more do you need? Especially if you know you get caught, you could do jail time, lose your career, put a bad image on yourself, your family or on the NBA\u2026 They dropped the ball.\u201d<\/p>\n

The FBI said the twin schemes \u2013 one of them focused on insider sports betting and another on poker games rigged with high-tech equipment \u2013 spanned years and involved tens of millions of dollars in illicit gains from wire fraud, money laundering, extortion, and gambling.<\/p>\n

\"Miami<\/p>\n

Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier was arrested in Florida in Thursday (AP)<\/p>\n

Unusual betting patterns around a 2023 game, in which Rozier played with the Charlotte Hornets against the New Orleans Pelicans, sparked the sports betting investigation, the bureau said. Bookmakers in multiple states reported suspicious interest in the player\u2019s statistics, resulting in a surge of bets on his points, rebounds and assists.<\/p>\n

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Billups\u2019 arrest is reportedly part of the separate, but related, investigation into an illegal poker operation tied to the Mafia.<\/p>\n

A handful of defendants were charged in both cases, Brooklyn U.S. Attorney Joseph Nocella said, including Jones, the former Cleveland Cavaliers player and assistant coach.<\/p>\n

Both Rozier and Billups have been placed on \u201cimmediate leave\u201d by the NBA and appeared in federal courts in Florida and Oregon respectively on Thursday.<\/p>\n

James Trusty, Rozier’s lawyer, said prosecutors \u201cappear to be taking the word of spectacularly incredible sources rather than relying on actual evidence of wrongdoing. Terry was cleared by the NBA and these prosecutors revived that non-case.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Portland<\/p>\n

Portland Trail Blazers head coach Chauncey Billups is also under investigation (AP)<\/p>\n

Chris Heywood, Billups\u2019 attorney, said: \u201cAnyone who knows Chauncey Billups knows he is a man of integrity; men of integrity do not cheat and defraud others.<\/p>\n

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\u201cTo believe that Chauncey Billups did what the federal government is accusing him of is to believe that he would risk his hall-of-fame legacy, his reputation, and his freedom. He would not jeopardize those things for anything, let alone a card game.<\/p>\n

He continued: \u201cChauncey Billups has never and would never gamble on basketball games, provide insider information, or sacrifice the trust of his team and the League, as it would tarnish the game he has devoted his entire life to.<\/p>\n

\u201cChauncey Billups has never backed down. He does not plan to do so now. He will fight these allegations with the same tenacity that marked his 28-year career. We look forward to our day in court.\u201d<\/p>\n

The NBA said in a statement Thursday: \u201cWe are in the process of reviewing the federal indictments announced today. We will continue to cooperate with the relevant authorities. We take these allegations with the utmost seriousness, and the integrity of our game remains our top priority.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A solemn Shaquille O\u2019Neal weighed in on the NBA sports betting scandal on Thursday night, saying he was…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":328767,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[163469,1121,3118,162666,3128,163468,12783,128113,3120,1260,3137,67894,3133,46613,62,8930,99907,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-328766","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-basketball-stars","9":"tag-brooklyn","10":"tag-charlotte-hornets","11":"tag-chauncey-billups","12":"tag-cleveland-cavaliers","13":"tag-damon-jones","14":"tag-fbi","15":"tag-inside-the-nba","16":"tag-miami-heat","17":"tag-nba","18":"tag-new-orleans-pelicans","19":"tag-poker-games","20":"tag-portland-trail-blazers","21":"tag-shaquille-oneal","22":"tag-sports","23":"tag-sports-betting","24":"tag-terry-rozier","25":"tag-united-states","26":"tag-unitedstates","27":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115428420117143223","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328766","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=328766"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328766\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/328767"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=328766"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=328766"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=328766"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}