The NBA gambling scandals.
Tangle
Isaac Saul
4.7 • 818 Ratings
🗓️ 29 October 2025
⏱️ 31 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Last Thursday, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) announced it had made arrests in a pair of investigations into illegal gambling involving National Basketball Association (NBA) players and coaches. Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier is among those charged in the illegal sports betting case, while Portland Trail Blazers coach Chauncey Billups and several others are charged with participating in rigged poker games with ties to the mafia. According to FBI Director Kash Patel, the bureau has arrested 34 people as a result of the multi-year investigations, which covered 11 states and involved tens of millions of dollars. Billups and Rozier have been placed on leaves from their teams, and the NBA announced a review of its gambling rules.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | from executive producer isaac saul this is tangle good morning good afternoon and good evening to the Tangle podcast, a place where you get views from across the political spectrum, some independent thinking, and a little bit of our take. |
| 0:30.8 | I am your host today, senior editor Will Kayback, and today we're going to be busting out of the news cycle a little bit and talking about |
| 0:39.1 | an issue that isn't as tied to what President Trump or Congress or the government is doing. |
| 0:44.1 | And that is the betting scandal that is currently engulfing the National Basketball Association |
| 0:49.2 | and really all of professional sports. So last week, the FBI announced arrests in two separate cases related to gambling. |
| 0:57.7 | The first is more serious for the NBA. |
| 1:00.5 | It involves alleged match fixing and a current NBA player and a former coach. |
| 1:06.0 | The other case isn't as directly tied to the league, but it does involve a current coach. But the story as a whole |
| 1:13.0 | raises some really interesting questions about the impact of legalized betting in the United States. |
| 1:19.0 | And so we're going to get into arguments about what the proponents of legalized betting are saying |
| 1:24.0 | and what they have argued in the past, what the opponents are saying and how they're |
| 1:28.2 | seizing on the current scandal to make their point. And then I'm going to kind of break down both |
| 1:33.0 | sides of the debate and tell you what I think about legalized sports betting. So again, |
| 1:38.5 | a super engaging topic. We hope you enjoy breaking out of the normal format a bit and getting |
| 1:43.1 | to have a little bit more |
| 1:44.2 | of a philosophical debate about these societal issues. And of course, let us know what you think |
| 1:48.7 | about this kind of coverage. Before we jump in, though, very excited to share some new video |
| 1:54.7 | content with you. I'm guessing that some, if not many of you listening today are here because of a podcast episode that |
| 2:02.9 | was produced by Question Everything and then featured on This American Life, which was about Tangle |
| 2:08.4 | and the work that we're doing. Central to their story was a couple, Dick and Emily, who said |
| 2:14.4 | that Tangle helped save their marriage during the 2020 election because they disagreed |
| 2:19.2 | on a lot politically, particularly whether that election was stolen from President Trump. |
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