Claim that government has overstepped
Two months ago, NBA guard Terry Rozier was arrested on charges of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering in connection with his alleged involvement in an illegal betting scheme. Now his legal team has filed a motion to dismiss the charges.
Prosecutors have alleged that Rozier told Deniro Laster that he would exit a game on March 23, 2023, when Rozier was a member of the Charlotte Hornets, with a fake injury. The reason: so Laster could profit betting the “under” on Rozier prop bets. By allegedly making sure he left the game early, Rozier would guarantee he missed certain prop bet targets set by sportsbooks.
“The government has billed this case as involving ‘insider betting’ and ‘rigging’ professional basketball games,” wrote Jim Trusty, Rozier’s attorney and a partner at Ifrah Law, in the motion. “But the indictment alleges something less headline-worthy: that some bettors broke certain sportsbooks’ terms of use.”
“The indictment does not allege that Mr. Rozier ever placed a bet, whether himself or through a proxy, on any NBA game,” Trusty argued. “Nor does it allege that he knew that Laster intended to sell this information to others, or that using it to place wagers would violate the Betting Companies’ rules.”
Hey, I’m going to be hurt, wink wink
According to the prosecution, Laster sold the “injury” information to people who were known to be sports bettors for $100,000. Those bettors, in turn, placed over $200,000 in bets on Rozier under prop bets for the game in question. The indictment also alleges that Laster went to Rozier’s house a week later and “counted the money” in front of him.
Aside from the unusually high betting activity on Rozier prop bets, one red flag surrounding the fateful game was that Rozier had no injury designation on the pre-game injury report. Of course, players get hurt all the time, but without an obvious in-game injury occurrence, it is odd to see a player leave a game with an injury if there was nothing known about it ahead of time.
As such, the NBA is implementing a new injury reporting policy. Teams will be required to publish their injury reports between 11:00am and 1:00pm on game day and then update them every 15 minutes on the NBA’s website. This way, it will be more difficult for insider betting information to be shared without it being known to the public.
Terry Rozier is now on the Miami Heat, but because of the betting scandal, he has not played this season. Miami is talking to the league about any possible recourse it might have, as the team did not know about the federal investigation before it traded for Rozier in January 2024.
