Is the gambling explosion ruining sports?
Post Reports
The Washington Post
4.4 • 5.1K Ratings
🗓️ 18 November 2025
⏱️ 30 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Last month the FBI arrested Portland Trail Blazers head coach Chauncey Billups and Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier for their involvement in two separate illegal gambling cases. Now star MLB pitchers Emmanuel Clase and Luis Ortiz have been charged for their role in an unrelated case involving allegedly throwing balls to benefit bettors.
Today on “Post Reports,” host Elahe Izadi is joined by longtime Washington Post sports reporter Rick Maese to talk about why legal sports gambling in the United States has exploded over the past few years and how the landscape continues to change for leagues, players, coaches and fans. Then Rick dives deep on the two scandals, and why they matter for the present and future of sports betting.
Today’s episode was produced by Lucas Trevor. It was mixed by Sam Bair, and edited by Peter Bresnan, with help from Reena Flores and Thomas Lu. Special tanks to Joe Tone.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Whenever I'm watching sports, whether it's a regular season NBA matchup or the World Series, |
| 0:08.2 | there's one thing that is just everywhere. |
| 0:12.1 | Gambling. |
| 0:13.0 | This MLB season, bet live with band duel and make the game come alive. |
| 0:18.3 | With live betting for the first round of the final whistle. Draft Kings, you make the |
| 0:22.3 | playoffs even more exciting. And gambling on sports has never been easier. Using apps like Draft |
| 0:29.0 | Kings or Fandul, with just a few taps, you can bet on almost any aspect of a game. The world of |
| 0:36.8 | legal sports betting has been exploding over the last few years, |
| 0:40.3 | but along with it, so have fears that this could lead to cheating or worse. |
| 0:46.3 | Conspiracy and rigging pitches. |
| 0:48.3 | Prosecutors said in the indictment that Class A and Ortiz threw specific pitches for balls. |
| 0:54.5 | They're accused of participating in a gambling scheme centered on what we call micro bets, |
| 1:00.2 | and those are bets on tiny moments within a game. |
| 1:05.3 | Two major league baseball players were in court last week after being indicted in the league's most significant gambling |
| 1:12.8 | scandal in decades. A Senate committee has now launched a probe into betting in major league baseball. |
| 1:19.5 | All this comes on the heels of another scandal. This one rocking the NBA. Last month, the FBI |
| 1:26.4 | arrested a player and a head coach. This was part of an investigation |
| 1:31.4 | into a sports betting operation and rigged poker scheme run by the mob. Now, the multi-billion |
| 1:39.7 | dollar sports betting industry is under renewed scrutiny. |
| 1:49.5 | From the newsroom of the Washington Post, this is Post Reports. |
| 1:53.6 | I'm Elahe-Izadi. It's Tuesday, November 17th. |
| 2:03.5 | Today, the future of legal sports gambling. I speak to Post-Sports reporter Rick Mace, who first explains why I can't watch a game without hearing an ad for sports betting, but also whether these scandals are threatening the |
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