The game was fixed long before the bets were legal

The integrity of sports is in trouble again, or so the headlines say. The FBI last week arrested more than 30 people in a wide-ranging gambling probe that ensnared Portland Trail Blazers head coach Chauncey Billups and Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier.

A former Cleveland Cavaliers player, Damon Jones, was also charged in two separate cases — one involving sports betting improprieties, the other tied to Billups’ alleged participation in an illegal poker ring linked to the mafia.

Cheating is illegal. Addiction is tragic. But gambling itself isn’t a sin against the republic.

Given the timing — amid public debate over legalized sports wagering since 2018 — the FBI’s sweep might look like vindication for critics of betting. It isn’t.

Millionaires behaving badly

When federal agents arrest millionaire athletes and coaches for gambling crimes, it raises an obvious question: Is legalized sports betting really to blame?

Rozier’s salary cap for the 2025-26 season is $26.6 million. His career earnings total more than $160 million. Billups made $4.7 million during the 2024-25 NBA season. Disgraced Toronto Raptors player Jontay Porter, 25, had earned $2.7 million before his ban for sharing medical information to steer bets.

When people earn sums that most Americans can’t even imagine, they often invent new ways to ruin themselves. The average NBA salary in 1991 was $800,000; today it’s more than $8 million. As David Cone of Crain and Company observed, “Even if you’re just on a roster, you make more than doctors make. There’s no excuse.”

There really isn’t. This scandal is less about gambling and more about human nature — about greed, self-destruction, and the moral rot that wealth alone can’t fix. The Supreme Court’s decision to legalize small wagers didn’t make multimillionaires betray their sport for a few illegal dollars. They did that on their own.

The moral lesson that hasn’t changed

When infielder Fred McMullin went down in the 1919 “Black Sox” scandal, he earned $3,500 a year — roughly $67,000 in today’s money. Those players were underpaid and easily tempted. No one can say that about professional athletes or coaches today.

Legalized betting didn’t create this corruption, and FBI Director Kash Patel said as much during an interview with Laura Ingraham on Fox News.

Critics overplay their hand

A video clip from ESPN’s “Get Up” made the rounds this week after producers hastily removed an on-screen ad for ESPN Bet during coverage of the scandal. The network’s discomfort spurred an online feeding frenzy from the right’s new morality police, who pounced on the moment as proof of hypocrisy.

Saagar Enjeti circled the ad and captioned it, “Spot the problem.” But the real problem isn’t the ad; it’s addiction and bad character. Billups apparently got hooked on poker. Rozier and Jones broke the law and got caught in an era when every transaction and text leaves a trail.

Enjeti calls this “uncontrolled.” Tell that to the players facing federal indictments. Gambling today is more visible, traceable, and regulated than ever before. The temptation hasn’t changed — the surveillance has.

RELATED: The myth of the online gambling ‘epidemic’

Hirurg via iStock/Getty Images

Americans were always betting

Critics say the explosion of legal sportsbooks has opened new avenues for corruption. Maybe. But it has also pulled a massive shadow economy into the light. Americans didn’t wait for the Supreme Court’s permission to wager; by 2015, they were already betting an estimated $150 billion a year on illegal offshore sites.

Yes, the sector’s growth has been explosive. And yes, it’s unsettling to see leagues, networks, and sportsbooks growing so intertwined. But that doesn’t make moral crusaders the saviors of integrity.

The real vice

Take Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, who reportedly won $1.4 million playing blackjack in Las Vegas last year — less than 1% of his net worth. Critics didn’t call that a moral crisis.

The point is simple: People should be free to spend their discretionary income as they choose. Cheating is illegal. Addiction is tragic. But gambling itself isn’t a sin against the republic.

The latest pro sports scandal offers a moral lesson, but not the one the prohibitionists want to hear. Legalized betting didn’t corrupt sports — people did. And no law can outlaw greed.