After discovering Jontay Porter's connection with an illegal sports-betting ring last year, federal prosecutors are now investigating whether Terry Rozier similarly manipulated his performance as part of a gambling scheme.
According to a report Thursday in the Wall Street Journal, on March 23, 2023, U.S. Integrity, a group that monitors betting markets for sports entities, gambling operators and government agencies, noticed a suspicious wave of bets centered on the performance of Rozier, then a Charlotte Hornet. The Hornets played the New Orleans Pelicans that night, and though Rozier started the game, he played only about 10 minutes before being substituted out with what was later said to be a foot injury. He did not return to the game, and subsequently missed the remaining eight games of the season.
That same night, U.S. Integrity notified various sportsbooks and the NBA about the unusual wagers, which had tended to bet the under on Rozier for points and rebounds, leading some books to stop taking bets on Rozier for the game. A spokesman for the NBA has released the following statement:
“In March 2023, the NBA was alerted to unusual betting activity related to Terry Rozier’s performance in a game between Charlotte and New Orleans. The league conducted an investigation and did not find a violation of NBA rules. We are now aware of an investigation by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York related to this matter and have been cooperating with that investigation.”
— NBA spokesman Mike Bass
While Rozier hasn't been officially accused of anything illegal, the nature of the events bears a notable resemblance to the Porter situation, which also involved U.S. Integrity noticing strange bets and Porter removing himself from games due to injuries. Complicating any notion of Rozier's complicity in the scheme is the fact that he was due a fully guaranteed salary payout had he been able to play out the rest of the season, reaching 70 games played. It's a strange case where any kind of motive on his part is unclear. Rozier has not released any statement on the matter.
Even without any concrete charges at the moment, this casts the league's cozy relationship with the sports gambling industry in even harsher light. There have been many, many warning signs about the dangers of this along the way, and the NBA will not be able to dismiss this situation as easily as the Porter one. Rozier, while a journeyman, is a much better and more visible player than Porter, with a status and contract that don't lend themselves to hand-waves about the last man on the bench doing something crazy out of financial desperation. And even if the federal investigators come to the same conclusion as the NBA and find that Rozier didn't do anything wrong, the simple fact that there is now a second player implicated in this kind of scheme shows how real and serious the issue is. Plus, as the WSJ article goes on to note, it's not just the NBA that should be concerned. The investigators here will keep digging, and there's no telling how far and wide all of this reaches.
