GoKawiilIain Schmitt
Terry Rozier and the Teleprompt Operator
On October 23rd, 2025, the US Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of New York indicted five people as part of a sports gambling conspiracy. From the indictment:
As alleged, Rozier, then an active player for the Hornets, tipped off longtime friend Laster that Rozier planned to leave the game early due to a purported injury. Rozier provided this information to Laster for the purpose of enabling Laster to place wagers based on this information. Laster, Fairley, and Hennen, among others, used that confidential information to place and direct more than $200,000 in wagers predicting Rozier’s “under” statistics (i.e., that Rozier would underperform). Rozier exited the game after nine minutes, and many of the bets paid off, generating tens of thousands of dollars in profits. Laster collected the cash and drove through the night to Rozier’s house, where together they counted the profits together [sic].
Sports commentator Bill Simmons, whose podcast is sponsored by the FanDuel sportsbook, had the following to say in an emergency show about the scandal:
They always sniff it out anytime there's irregular stuff. So in a weird way, it's being policed I think better than it's ever been...I wonder, do you think all of these things still happen if gambling hadn't been more legalized across the states in the last 10 years? I would argue the illegal poker games, we've been hearing about those for 30 years.
His guest, Joe House, added the following:
...all established books can detect irregularities very rapidly. I mean, even the Rozier game, didn't they shut that down?
Most of the public debate about vice issues goes something like this: those who want more permissive rules argue that it is easier for the state to monitor activity and regulate abuses when everything is above-the-table. Those who want less permissive rules on vice argue that legalisation lowers the barrier to entry to start a self-destructive drug or gambling problem, harming more of society in the process. This can end in both sides talking past each other, because liberalisers talk about harm per transaction while restrictionists stress the volume of transactions. What really matters is the product of harm per transaction and transaction volume, but too few debates get to that point.
But sports gambling is different from other vices as the Terry Rozier episode shows. Simmons is probably correct that it is easier to detect suspicious gambling activity now that sportsbooks are legal in most of the country, but the sports gambling legalisation boom is what makes it possible to bet $200,000 on an NBA player's single-game statistics. A simplified but mostly correct way to understand how a sportsbook offers bets is that they want to balance the amount of money wagered on either side of an outcome. If the Seattle Seahawks are 6-point favourites over the Patriots, the house wants just as much money wagered on Seattle to win by more than 6 points as they do for the Seahawks to either win by less than 6 or not win at all. If too many bettors are betting on the Seahawks, they will move up the point spread to encourage more people to take the other side of the bet. No matter the outcome, sportsbooks pay out winners with money from losing bets, but not before the house takes a cut.
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