NBA Betting Scandal: Terry Rozier's Salary Forfeiture
Terry Rozier will lose his salary over a gambling scheme and leave the NBA after 2025. Craig Mish and Sam McQuillan discuss the latest sports betting news.
Video Transcript
Let's get to our top story of the day.
The biggest story in terms of scandal in the NBA involving sports betting last year comes with free agent Terry Rozier.
Now looks like he's gotta forfeit most of his salary for the 2025, '26 season because of his role in that sports gambling scheme.
That's what they have ruled earlier this year that Rozier should have received a salary because NBA rules didn't allow unpaid leave in cases like this.
But as of right now, despite him pleading not guilty, right now it looks like he's gonna have to return that salary.
And of course, he has no future playing in the NBA ever again.
But he can watch the game tonight between the Knicks and Spurs, and man, this line is certainly climbing.
As of right now, San Antonio has moved up to six and a half point favorites tonight against the Knicks with a total of 215 and a half, which is down from opening night in the NBA finals, which was 218 and a half.
So let's get to some audio here, and hear from Karl-Anthony Towns, and says that he doesn't think about taking a 2-0 lead, and says the Knicks are thinking that the series is now 0-0.
The difference between leaving here at 1-1 and 2-0, you know, knowing that they've come back in a few series already, how important is it to not give them, you know, any hope or any momentum and, and kind of putting your foot down here and, and taking that 2-0 lead?
I mean, for me, I don't think, I don't think of anything like that, the 1-1, 2-0.
I just think it's 0-0, and the next game is the most important game of the year.
So just continue to stay in the present, not worry about what the future may look like, not worry about what we've done in the past.
Just cancel all that out and just worry about the present.
Tomorrow we step on that court, should be the same determination, desperation, energy level, and physicality needed for a game one win.
Meanwhile, the other side of the coin, of course, is Victor Wembanyama, who didn't have his best game in game one.
Just says the Spurs need to play how they played during the regular season, and that should tell the story.
Now, what do you think normal means for you guys?
Normal means trusting each other, trusting the basketball gods, trusting the game plan, executing, and not relying on talent so much to make shots or to, to save the day, you know?
I mean, we, we've been playing a certain way all season, and it's we've been successful this way, and there's no reason to change the day the finals start.
The biggest injury meanwhile in Major League Baseball has officially occurred.
It is to Yankees all-star and MVP Aaron Judge.
He's going to miss four to six weeks with a stress fracture around his rib area.
The Yankees do believe that he will return at some point this season.
There was some discussion that he had met with a doctor that was involving thoracic outlet surgery, which naturally would end his season.
But as of right now, that does not appear to be the case.
Aaron Judge going on the IL through the all-star break, without a doubt.
Meanwhile, so the Yankees are gonna have to win with pitching, and they got it yesterday.
Carlos Rodon led New York to a 2-1 win.
Rodon struck out seven in six innings.
Jazz Chisholm also had a nice offensive game, driving in some runs.
Here's Jazz on the pitching performance of his starter.
Jazz, what'd you think of Carlos today?
I don't know.
He was, he was back to himself today.
He looks like he was out there, good tempo, hitting all his spots.
He looks really good.
When you say back to himself, you mentioned the tempo and the spots, but anything about his stuff aside from out there, the pitches he was throwing that stood out?
no.
I just felt like he was out there with his swagger, you know?
He was that, that bulldog rooster, you know that we always call him.
But, like, he was just He was out there, he felt good, and he threw the ball really well.
Dodgers and Diamondbacks end up splitting their four-game series because the Diamondbacks won last night, scoring two runs in the eighth to outlast the Dodgers 3-2.
It was Ketel Marte's shot that turns out to be the difference maker, walking off the Dodgers with a 3-2 win.
Here's Torey Lovullo on the split of the series and the walk-off home run.
He's a beast.
He's an absolute beast, and he's looking to do something, amazing at the most critical time of the game.
So it's just his personality.
And, you know, I saw Scott warming up.
I, I knew what the rotation was gonna be.
I knew that there was gonna be an opportunity for Ketel to get on that side of the plate where he's been swinging a real hot bat, and I just felt like if he was gonna be able to get a pitch, he could end the game in one swing of the bat.
So certainly fun to watch.
His reaction is always, entertaining, but he deserved that moment.
Also, in the National League, the Phillies have put themselves in the wildcard spot by beating the Padres 6-4.
They end up sweeping San Diego for the second time in a week.
How about that?
Zach Wheeler, eight strikeouts in seven innings pitched.
He recapped his strong outing against the Padres.
Fastball's playing well.
struggled a little bit with the sweeper, but a few of them were good, and, a lot of split fingers today.
That was, that was working for me.
So, you know, I've faced these guys so much that I just kinda went about it a tiny bit differently.
you know, usually throw a lot of sinkers in the righties, and today we just kinda stayed away or tried to.
a couple of them tailed back in, but, you know, it was flying good, even though it was tailing back over the plate.
And, you know, Manny got me on that one.
But I feel like if I would've get that one there, JT said that, you know, he should've called sweeper.
But if I executed that pitch away, I think we would've got him again, or at least the setup for something else.
So, you know, other than that, it, it went really good.
Speaking of walk-offs, in the National League, it was an interleague battle between the Cubs and A's going to the Cubs.
They win as home favorites.
They actually trailed 6-3 heading into the ninth inning, but scored four runs to win it.
Pete Crow-Armstrong hit a home run in the game and had a walk-off single as Chicago beats Sacramento 7-6.
Here's Dansby Swanson, who had a hit to tie the game at sixI think that's, that is this group, right?
Just the, the pass the baton, take your at bat, be committed to one another.
Like that, that ninth inning was like the true embodiment of, of this group, and it was so fun to be able to see it kind of come out.
Like we, we definitely needed it.
It was a, it was a big game for us.
and to be able to win it in that fashion is something that, that you can definitely build momentum on moving forward.
Momentum is what the Baltimore Orioles have as they beat the Red Sox and take the series against Boston 8 to 2, the final yesterday as Bryan Bello, the Red Sox starter, gave up eight runs in five innings and was optioned to Triple-A after the game.
But the Orioles seemingly had a hot start and have playing better as of late.
Here's their skipper, Craig Albernaz, on the hot start.
Early inning struggles, this year, how much fun was it to get six runs right off the bat?
Yeah, absolutely.
It was, a great job by our offense coming out ready from pitch one.
Obviously, Wardy setting the tone and, you know, it was a great job grinding out at bats, getting good pitches to hit, running the bases aggressively, you know, and to give, you know, any starter, but Rod, you know, a six-run cushion before he even steps on the mound, really good.
Meanwhile, the San Francisco Giants desperately needed a series win.
They got it yesterday against the Brewers.
Final score was 12 to 9.
That's right, the Giants, who generally don't score a lot, put up a 12 spot on Milwaukee.
Here's manager Tony Vitello on his offense going off.
Bryce getting on base nonstop.
you know, a- and Luis had a great day too, so it's good Rafi came out here with something.
So the whole group was great.
The only way you win a game like that is if our offense was as electric as they were, and then you probably needed to sprinkle in some good defense too, which were, there, there were several good defensive plays.
Looks like the fans of the National Hockey League are in for a special treat because this series between Vegas and Carolina could go the distance, both games right down to the wire.
Last night, an overtime game as Carolina, the Hurricanes, beat the Golden Knights by a final of four to three.
Seth Jarvis scored the game-winning goal in overtime for the Hurricanes.
Game three will be played in Las Vegas on Saturday night, and as you can see with the odds, this is really close.
Carolina, a light favorite, about minus 125, 130 in some spots.
Vegas, a little bit of plus money.
Who knows who's gonna win this series, but I have a feeling it could be headed to seven.
Welcome back to News Wire here on Sports Grid.
Game two of the finals is tonight.
Sam McCullen will be watching tonight because he roots for the Knicks as they take on the Spurs.
But we root for good stories here on the show, and you can find those over at legalsportsreport.com as Sam joins us to close out the week.
Sam, thanks for coming on the show.
okay, really interesting story that you guys posted here over at LSR, which is basically, some representatives around the country want some clarity about prediction markets, and they want it from the CFTC.
Are we in charge?
Are you in charge?
Who's making the decisions here?
And, you know, quite frankly, I think that this is fair.
We gotta get some clarity as to s- if states can run it.
Is the government gonna run this thing?
What exactly does the future hold?
Yeah, it seems to only really be questions and questions and more questions right now, Craig, in this prediction market space, which, there was three major developments this week, in Washington mainly, where it's becoming-- You notice your-- It's becoming increasingly political.
It's becoming increasingly charged.
you're seeing, you know, last week you saw, President Donald Trump, take to social media to tout the CFTC's regulation or jurisdiction rather, over prediction markets, allowing them to, you know, exist in all 50 states and allow people to basically do sports betting under these kind of different rules.
While obviously on the other side, you have all the states, I think, you know, almost 20 now suing to stop it.
you had three congressmen and women this week, all Democrats notably, asking the inspector general to investigate, the agency, the CFTC, their legal rationale, and the resources when it comes to prediction markets.
This letter basically lays out, you know, the case and says, you know, under Trump's tenure, you know, you have to look at when sports event contracts became a thing.
It was only three days, after he was sworn into office.
That's when Kalshi first launched sports event contracts and, you know, kind of after that, everyone else followed.
Now it's 85% of its business.
This letter kind of says since then, the CFTC has like rapidly expanded, what it believes its jurisdiction to be.
It obviously used to just be overseeing derivatives and financial trading, futures of grains, legal betting.
It says it's now expanded that, you know, rapidly into sports event contracts, which takes a lot of resources and time and dedication.
Meanwhile, the agency just had major staff cuts.
It's down about 30% since Trump took office, and it continues to launch these lawsuits too.
We've seen now the CFTC sue six states defending its jurisdiction to regulate these products.
At the same time, the letter also lays out that it's actually walked back efforts to actually regulate them.
So it basically says they're spending a lot of time and money and resources on defending the right to oversee the products while simultaneously not actually overseeing them.
You know, obviously, there's been a number of, you know, high-profile scandals or cases rather that's popped up in the space, and we've seen other lawmakers on Capitol Hill introduce bills to try to rein in the space.
At the same time, this week also, Republicans from the House Financial Services Committee, had a private meeting with Kalshi, Robinhood, and Polymarket, as well as the American Gaming Association, which has been very staunch against, the, you know, allowing these products to do sports betting on their platforms.
it was reportedly a private investigation, which came just a day after a report that former Congressman George Santos is now being investigated for allegedly, betting that he would not attend the, State of the Union address from the president earlier this year.But then bragging that he was going to, and then I think about three minutes into the speech tweeting out that he had logistics problems.
So now the Department of Justice is reportedly investigating him as well.
you know, Trump pardoned him a couple years ago after I think it was found that he lied about, you know, being a Wall Street trader, and he was, you know, kicked out of Congress.
So we're, this is all becoming more political and more questions are being asked, and right now there's not a lot of answers.
I think kind of everyone is looking to the courts to figure that out.
But at the same time, we have, you know, over a dozen lawsuits playing out across different states, and I don't know if we're gonna get answers on this anytime soon.
But it certainly looks like there's a lot more questions kinda every day in Washington.
I wouldn't be surprised- Yeah you know, in a month from now when we come back talking about the, the next crazy development or ask or scandal.
It's, it just seems like it's happening every day now.
It's pretty crazy.
Yeah, indeed.
All right.
Sam, the news is out, and it's not a surprise that FanDuel and DraftKings still lead over all of the other sports betting operators and providers.
DraftKings shifted into first place, I know, in 2026, maybe late 2025.
Beyond that, you can read the story at legalsportsreport.com.
What else can you tell us about this, this report?
Yeah.
There's a firm called Eilers & Krejcik, which, hires professional testers to give grades to different sports betting apps twice a year.
And they put out this report, which historically has been kind of indicative of, how well the apps actually do in terms of market share and, you know, their popularity, in America.
DraftKings has now led the report for, you know, consecutive times as the number one app, leading in four out of five categories.
That includes things like how fast the app works, how just overall the user experience feels, of course the reward system and bonuses.
you know, pricing is also factored in as well.
So historically, whenever DraftKings has led, it's also been, you know, number one for that cycle in terms of, you know, having the most bets that people have placed and also, you know, leading all the other apps in revenue.
FanDuel wasn't close behind in second place, which, you know, if you know anything about US sports betting, isn't a huge surprise.
It's been DraftKings and FanDuel kind of historically for the last couple years.
more of the interesting kind of changes are that Fanatics, is now third.
it's been the fourth kind of straight report, so second year, full year of Fanatics being in third.
the testers noted that, it has a really good kind of reward system.
Fanatics has this fan cash system where you can use, you know, earn points on what you bet and, you know, use that to buy merchandise or jerseys or pick rewards.
So that was kind of their first innovative thing when they launched.
Also, you know, obviously Fanatics is privately owned, so it has a little bit of a different kind of just business dynamic and pressures that maybe, the other apps don't have.
But the thing that kind of stood out to me, Greg, was that BetMGM, which we used to talk about as kind of knocking on the door of, you know, maybe they'll get to first or second, they certainly were third for a long time.
They're now eighth, according to this report, not only in kind of app performance and how well they're doing overall, but also we've seen around the country their market share has slipped as well.
Obviously, it's pretty notable that BetMGM, along with Caesars, is one of the only, you know, sports betting apps that has not gone into prediction markets so far.
This report doesn't take that into account, the prediction market stuff, but it kind of is, you know, important context with how well these companies are doing.
MGM as well as Caesars are both up for a sale right now, so I think they obviously don't want to be having their online gaming arm slip- Sure at this time.
and then of course, the last thing I wanna mention here is Bet365 is also slipping, which has kind of gone against the grain.
It's, you know, dealt out a lot of promos and entered new states and spent a lot of money trying to expand in the US at a time when it kind of looks like every other sports betting app is not expanding.
So just kind of some small interesting developments to watch as the space keeps developing.
Same story of DraftKings and FanDuel at top, and then kind of everyone else is shuffling around a little bit.
the state of Arizona, real quick, Sam, appears to be opening up the door for maybe additional sports betting, operators here.
Wh- why are they making this move?
Yeah.
Arizona is, has had sports betting since 2021.
Mm-hmm.
the, Department of Gaming just kind of, you know, meets every year and figures out if it wants to open up to more applicants.
It's, it's a good question, why are they making this move at this time?
They used to have 18 total sportsbooks, now they only have 13.
A lot have exited the space, over the last couple of years.
But most of the market is still dominated by FanDuel, DraftKings, Caesars, and BetMGM.
So it's kind of, it's a question mark of who could be entering the space at this time.
But if you know anything about US sports betting, it's kind of when you least expect something to happen is when it does.
That's what happened certainly when Fanatics entered the space and PointsBet exited.
So this could be opening up the market for kind of a mystery entrant into Arizona, which has been a really key state for sports betting operators.
Low tax rate and a lot of betting.
So we'll have to keep watching and see who enters or, you know, if anyone ever does at all.
But yeah, it's, definitely kind of scratching your head as to why now.
You know?
We'll, we'll see, I guess.
Yeah.
Maybe s- maybe numbers are just simply down in Arizona, and they think that this is a way to get people to sign up new accounts, deposits, perhaps.
Sam, thanks again.
Good luck to your Knicks tonight.
We'll talk after the weekend.
Appreciate it.
Thanks a lot, Greg.
You too.
