Malik Beasley has been indicted by federal prosecutors, on charges related to suspicious gambling activity. According to earlier reporting, authorities began looking at Beasley last summer after at least one U.S. sports book noted unusual betting interest on Beasley's statistical production. The suspicious activity reportedly took place during the 2023–24 NBA regular season, when Beasley was a member of the Milwaukee Bucks. Shams Charania reported Monday that the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of New York is currently working to coordinate Beasley's voluntary surrender sometime this week.
You can lose your mind considering too closely the words chosen by Charania in one of his news releases, but in this case you would be right to zero in on "point shaving and prop bets." The indictment, unsealed Monday, names Beasley, former NBA forward Ed Davis, and four co-conspirators, including current player agent Paolo Zamorano, and charges them with "wire fraud conspiracy, bribery in sporting contests, honest services wire fraud conspiracy, and money laundering conspiracy," and describes a bribery scheme in which Beasley manipulated his performance in order to rig illegal bets. In an announcement to his office's website, U.S. Attorney Joseph Nocella Jr. accuses Beasley and his co-conspirators of seeking "to corrupt sports through illegal means."
"As alleged, the defendants turned professional basketball into a criminal betting operation, bribing then-NBA player Malik Beasley to fix his performance in multiple games in order to place fraudulent wagers, enrich themselves and cheat legitimate sportsbooks. Bribery and insider betting schemes like this one involving former NBA players and a current NBA player agent who exploited inside NBA information for profit erode the integrity of American sports and victimize the sports-watching public."
This is approximately the same trouble that found Jontay Porter and Terry Rozier, with the key difference that, unlike either of those two, Beasley is an authentically good NBA player who might reasonably have scored another long-term contract before the end of his prime playing years. The Detroit Pistons, for whom Beasley played a strong 2024–25 season, offered the sharpshooter a three-year contract worth $42 million, and then promptly yoinked the offer upon learning of the investigation. Had this all petered out last summer, as Charania at one point weirdly attempted to speak into existence, Beasley might've already secured a mighty bag, one capable of rescuing him from the grim financial straits described by a Detroit News report from last August.
The release on the U.S. Attorney's website lists examples of what it describes as "influenced games" discovered in the investigation. In a January game against the Cleveland Cavaliers, Beasley is accused of conspiring to underperform "with respect to rebounding in the game," so that Davis, Zamorano, and alleged co-conspirators Robert Gorodetsky and Ernesto Plascencia could place fraudulent wagers. Beasley was credited with three rebounds in 27 minutes that night. A month later, on Feb. 27, Beasley allegedly told Davis that he would underperform in both rebounds and points, and went for six points and four rebounds in 26 minutes. It's notable that these are not outrageously low rebounding totals for Beasley, who after all is a shooting guard (it's also notable, if only for yuks, that in the latter game Beasley's Bucks beat the Charlotte Hornets by 38 points). In a third example, from March 10, Beasley and Davis again allegedly targeted the under on rebounds, and Beasley was credited with four boards in more than 38 minutes of action.
There's a good chance the indictment now closes the book on Beasley's NBA playing career. The NBA banned Porter for life even before he'd been criminally charged; Rozier was placed on indefinite unpaid leave in October 2025 after being arrested for his own alleged prop-bet shenanigans, and remained exiled for the subsequent NBA season. Beasley is younger than Rozier and world's better than Porter, which perhaps goes some way toward explaining why the NBA has not yet taken any formal action against him. With the investigation hanging over him, Beasley has remained unsigned and missed all of last season, instead playing for part of the spring for Cangrejeros de Santurce of Puerto Rico's Baloncesto Superior Nacional. For what it's worth, he averaged 4.2 rebounds per game across 17 contests.
