The NBA is involved in a huge betting/gambling scandal allegedly involving multiple players and coaches with a number of teams in numerous cities, and some of these schemes may have ties to organized crime. This is not the first time this has happened.

Sports betting is nothing new. After all, gambling has been part of sports since the ancient Greek Olympic Games. Nor is it going away any time soon. If it’s around, people will be tempted to abuse it.

Image created using AI.

With this latest scandal, the named defendants technically just have their careers on hold, for they’ve been placed on “administrative leave,” but the reality is that their NBA careers are done, finito, nunca, nyet, over, end of story.

We know this because our nation’s sports history has long seen players, teams, and leagues (both amateur and professional) involved with some type of sports fixing. It’s never ended well for the players, or even the whole teams, caught in the law’s net. Here are some recent examples.

Going further back in time, other people, teams, and leagues succumbed to temptation:

• The Black Sox 1919
• College basketball fixes 1950s and 60s and 70s
• Paul Horning and Alex Karras
• Art Schlichter
• Pete Rose
• NBA referee Tim Donaghy
• Eastern Michigan University college hoopsters (UPDATE: The investigation is ongoing, so it is currently only alleged to have engaged in wrongdoing.)
• Cleveland pitcher Emmanuel Clase (UPDATE: The investigation against him is ongoing, so he is currently only alleged to have engaged in wrongdoing.)

Analyzing the games is no longer just about the “keys of the game.” It’s also about what parlays are best to bet, and whether the “over-under” is a good deal or should you watch out for the “trap game” as you pensively decide on a game to put your money on.

For every person who bets on a player to score over 30 points in a game, there’s another wager that the same player will score only 29.

In any case, the bookie or the house wins. Realistically, these are honest bets just like your office’s Super Bowl Pool Chart; it’s risked money with the bettor believing that the result of the competition itself is based on an honest, hard-working effort by all involved: players, coaches, and officials.

The problems arise when games are rigged, meaning a player purposely underperforms, fakes an injury, or commits an intentional error. That is a blatant, premeditated, unethical, and illegal action.

In that scenario, everyone loses, including the sport itself.

Once lost, the integrity of the game takes a long time to return, especially among its most ardent defenders —the fans. Worse, if the parties involved are not dealt with properly and legally, the damage is irrevocable.

As all sports aficionados know, the Black Sox scandal involving a number of Chicago White Sox players accepting money to throw games ended in an acquittal in a Chicago courtroom. However, Commissioner Kennesaw “Mountain” Landis, realizing the game was at a crossroads, threw all the players out of the game.

Permanently. No second chances. No appeals. “Yer out.”

Unfair and illegal? Perhaps. A good debate? Sure.

But was the game saved?

Well, MLB is a financially successful, globally followed game with multi-millionaire players and multi-billionaire owners and corporations.

The bottom line is that betting will always exist in sports. For fans who gamble, sports are an adrenaline kick. The risk of winning or losing it all can be addictive.

But it’s different today. With today’s gambling, there is an exponential growth of in-game gambling in which every play, pitch, three-pointer, or power play is bet on by a populace obsessively absorbed with the cash instead of the actual games.

Worse, the business of the sports-industrial-media complex is as much to blame as the players, coaches, and others involved in actually fixing the games because it has accepted money from the very group that threatens its integrity.

The leagues and media sold their collective soul to the betting websites with advertising, sponsorship, hosts, and even active players promoting them. In essence, the networks, websites, and the sports industry are complicit to their own potential destruction and extinction. They have aligned themselves with their enemy.

Right now, the NBA faces a huge problem. The worry among sports fans is that, as the investigation unfolds, other leagues may be connected. The global sports industry is in danger of folding.

For transparency purposes, it’s time for the sports industry to ante up. The game is in danger of ceasing to be a Homeric sporting contest and becoming a scripted Shakespearean play. I’m pretty sure English theatre goers never bet on Hamlet gaining the Danish throne, or Romeo and Juliet being wed by the friar.