When the federal government indicted Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier this month as part of a sweeping investigation into illicit sports gambling, his arrest raised questions about why Rozier had been allowed to play for the past two seasons and the NBA’s ability to investigate suspicious wagers.
Rozier was one of more than 30 people charged as part of two indictments brought by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York. The cases, intertwined according to the federal government, allege that Portland Trail Blazers coach Chauncey Billups and others — including several mafia families in New York — ran a rigged poker game ring while Rozier and co-conspirators were part of an illegal sports gambling scheme. Rozier is accused of manipulating his performance and sharing information ahead of a game so that a group of sports bettors could win money wagering on prop bets. Rozier, through an attorney, has denied the charges.
The NBA first investigated Rozier in the spring of 2023. Rozier continued to play, appearing in 125 games over two seasons since then, even as the league acknowledged publicly in January that he was under federal investigation. NBA commissioner Adam Silver said the league looked into the matter but could not substantiate a reason to take Rozier off the court.
“At the time, we did not find sufficient evidence to conclude that Rozier violated league rules,” NBA spokesperson Mike Bass told The Athletic. “As is typical for NBA investigations, this conclusion was subject to any new evidence we might receive.“
Multiple sportsbooks flagged suspicious prop bets on Rozier, then playing for the Charlotte Hornets, ahead of a game on March 23, 2023. Rozier exited the game after just nine minutes and 34 seconds and after having scored five points — 16 fewer than his season average.
Federal prosecutors allege that Rozier told a co-conspirator, De’Niro Laster, that he would leave the game early and claim an injury.
Laster, according to an indictment filed in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York earlier this month, sold that information for $100,000 to Marves Fairley and an unnamed co-conspirator whom the government said also once played in the NBA. Just to be sure, the men also texted with Laster to confirm that Rozier would come out of the game early, according to the indictment. In all, $263,000 was bet on Rozier, through individual prop bets or with parlays. Rozier hit the under in points, assists and 3-pointers but went over on rebounds.
Federal prosecutors also allege that one of Laster’s relatives opened a sports betting account the morning of the game to wager $4,000 on a parlay of Rozier props. An unnamed co-conspirator, described in the indictment as another Laster relative who lived in North Carolina, allegedly not only paid for that bet but had also asked Laster for what the indictment described as non-public information about Rozier’s health in the past and received it from Laster. Rozier will be arraigned next month in federal court in New York.
Jim Trusty, Rozier’s lawyer, said Rozier’s foot injury was real. Bass said that an MRI confirmed the injury. Rozier did not play in the final eight Hornets’ games that season.
“Everything points to a player who had no issue with gambling and wouldn’t have been sitting here trying to risk all that he had for so little gain,” Trusty said. “I just don’t think Terry is that self-destructive.”
When the sportsbooks notified the NBA of the suspicious wagers, the league began its own inquiry. The NBA has a sports gambling investigative team run by Dan Spillane, a top NBA lawyer, and Elizabeth Merigan, a former federal prosecutor. The NBA interviewed Rozier and looked through his phone but found nothing damning, Silver said.
The NBA later shared its findings with the Eastern District the winter after Rozier came under suspicion and as the feds investigated him. The league has cooperated with the federal government’s investigation, said Joseph Nocella, the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District. That investigation lasted several years, FBI director Kash Patel said in a news conference last week, and remains ongoing.
“The NBA does not have the same authority or investigatory resources as the federal government, including subpoena power to obtain information from anyone, law enforcement surveillance, wire-tapping and search warrants,” Bass, the NBA spokesperson, said.
The NBA has not divulged the details of its investigation publicly. A spokesman for the Hornets did not respond to a request for comment. Mitch Kupchak, then the team’s general manager, declined to comment for this story.
Trusty said that the NBA has not shared its findings with him either, although he believes that the league interviewed Rozier multiple times and checked the messages on his phone and that “it was a very robust and serious investigation by the league. It wasn’t just a check-the-box exercise.” The federal government, he said, “revived” Rozier’s case.
“I recognize that this is not like a double jeopardy defense,” Trusty said. “You can’t say, well, because the league cleared, case gets dismissed. But I do think it’s a valid question of, is there really additional evidence, or is there just a desire to have a splashy name on the indictment?”
Rozier’s indictment has raised important questions about the state of improper sports gambling and information sharing in the NBA. When the NBA banned Jontay Porter in 2024 after he was found to have manipulated his performance to help bettors, it pushed sportsbooks to stop taking under bets on props for two-way players, who might have seemed susceptible because of their tenuous place in the league and their relatively meager $500,000 salaries. Rozier, however, was in the first season of a four-year, $96 million contract. The NBA placed him on unpaid leave last week.
More important is what Rozier’s case means for the league going forward. If another suspicious betting accusation comes up in the future, can the NBA root it out with its own investigation?
While the NBA removed Porter from the court in March 2024, it did so after he had already manipulated his play in two games. Porter continued to play for the Toronto Raptors for two more months after suspicious betting on him first caught the attention of US Integrity, a betting monitoring company. The company sent an alert to all regulated sportsbook operators about Porter’s betting props for Toronto’s Jan. 26 game the very next day, according to its then CEO.
Bass said the league did not receive an alert from US Integrity or notification from any sportsbooks.
The NBA first learned of irregular betting on Porter the day after his March 20 game and pulled him on March 23. He played one game in that interim period and was banned from the league less than a month later.
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