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Read Full BioNBA Commissioner Adam Silver has been asked to brief the House Committee on Energy and Commerce on the gambling scandal that has shaken the league since news broke last Thursday that Portland Trail Blazers coach Chauncey Billups, Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier, and former NBA player and coach Damon Jones were indicted in connection with alleged game rigging and illegal betting.
In a letter sent Friday, Committee Chairman Brett Guthrie (R-KY) and Ranking Member Frank Pallone Jr. (D-NJ), along with Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee Chair John Joyce (R-PA) and Ranking Member Yvette Clarke (D-NY), asked Silver to brief them no later than October 31, “to assist the Committee in its oversight.”
The request came just days after Silver publicly called for stronger regulation of sports betting in an interview on “The Pat McAfee Show,” saying the United States needed “more regulation” to protect the integrity of the game. Silver appeared on the show the day before the start of the new NBA season, giving one of his most direct acknowledgments to date that legalized betting has introduced new risks for professional sports.
As members of the bipartisan Committee pointed out in the letter, this isn’t the first time it has been called upon to investigate integrity and fairness in sports. Previous investigations include issues such as steroid use in Major League Baseball, anti-doping measures in the Olympic Games, and sexual abuse of Olympic athletes.
“These allegations raise serious concerns about sports betting and the integrity of sport in the NBA, which harms fans and legal sports bettors,” the lawmakers wrote. They asked that Silver’s briefing detail “fraudulent, illegal, and alleged betting practices” involving NBA personnel, “actions the NBA intends to take to limit the disclosure of nonpublic information,” and whether existing conduct policies and partnerships with betting companies are being reevaluated.
Lawmakers Cite Widespread Integrity Concerns
The Committee’s request follows the October 23 unsealing of federal indictments in the Eastern District of New York charging six defendants, Terry Rozier, Damon Jones, Marves Fairley, Shane Hennen, Deniro Laster, and Eric Earnest, with wire fraud and money laundering for allegedly using confidential NBA information to place and profit from illegal bets on league games.
In a separate federal indictment unsealed the same day, federal prosecutors charged 31 defendants, including Portland Trail Blazers head coach Chauncey Billups and former NBA coach Damon Jones, in an alleged poker-rigging scheme linked to the Bonanno, Gambino, and Genovese organized crime families.
Members of the Committee warned that the indictments “raise serious concerns about sports betting and the integrity of sport in the NBA,” adding that this conduct “harms fans and legal sports bettors.”
In the letter, lawmakers noted that this isn’t the first time the league has found itself caught up in an illegal gambling scandal. They pointed to referee Tim Donaghy’s 2007 guilty plea to federal charges of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and transmitting wagering information after admitting he used insider knowledge to bet on games he officiated.
The Committee also highlighted Toronto Raptors player Jontay Porter’s 2024 guilty plea to federal charges of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and his lifetime ban by the NBA for disclosing confidential information and wagering on NBA games as evidence that illegal sports betting is still an ongoing problem for the league.
Pressure Mounts on the NBA
The latest scandal comes as sportsbooks shift ad spend toward the NBA and MLB, as NFL spots become more expensive. The congressional inquiry is bringing the NBA’s relationship with sportsbook operators under renewed scrutiny as legal betting continues to expand across the US.
Sports wagering is now legal in 39 states, plus Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico. Silver was an early advocate of legalizing sports betting, writing in a 2014 New York Times op-ed that it should be “brought out of the underground and into the sunlight where it can be appropriately monitored and regulated.”
Just last week, on “The Pat McAfee Show,” the commissioner called for “federal legislation rather than state-by-state” of sports betting and said the NBA had already asked its sportsbook partners to restrict player-specific prop bets, which he characterized as being easier to manipulate than other types of wagers.
Still, as betting becomes more entrenched in NBA culture and the league deepens its commercial ties to sportsbooks, questions about integrity and oversight are becoming harder to ignore.
Silver hasn’t publicly responded to the Committee’s request as of this writing. However, with lawmakers demanding answers and federal prosecutors pursuing criminal charges, his response may shape how the NBA and other leagues approach their betting partnerships and player conduct in the months ahead.
