Why do millionaire athletes get involved in gambling?
Yahoo Sports senior writer Jay Busbee tries to answer one of the key questions many had following the FBI's indictment of Terry Rozier and Chauncey Billups as a result of investigations into sports betting and gambling.
Video Transcript
When the news broke that NBA player Terry Rozier and NBA head coach Chauncey Billups were both implicated in a federal gambling investigation, pretty much everybody had the same exact question.
Why would two athletes who have both earned more than $100 million in their careers get involved with a potential career killer like gambling?
The answer is, it's not about the money.
The truth is the same traits that make someone a world-class athlete can make them particularly vulnerable to a gambling addiction.
Think about it.
Athletes are competitive.
They refuse to lose.
They believe they can beat the odds because they've beaten the odds all their life to get to where they are right now.
You can see where this is going.
Plus, athletes are conditioned to push through pain.
And pain can come from sore muscles, or it can come from losing 500 bucks in a bad NFL weekend.
What would stop most of us doesn't even slow down a pro athlete.
Now, prop bets, they're a particular problem.
Athletes are trained to zero in on an opponent's tendencies from pitches to shot selection.
And when you've researched that information and you can now gamble on it through the use of prop bets, well, again, you can see where this is all going.
Finally, what makes a great athlete a refusal to quit?
What makes a terrible gambler a refusal to quit?
And that, not the money, is how athletes end up in gambling trouble.
