The NBA gambling scandal is the biggest story of the year in US sports, a culmination of the years-long embrace between professional leagues and the multibillion-dollar gambling industry that has now crossed the line from synergy into scandal.
In two sweeping federal indictments unsealed in Brooklyn on Thursday, prosecutors charged more than 30 people – including the Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier, Portland Trail Blazers coach Chauncey Billups and former NBA player and assistant Damon Jones – with schemes that turned inside information and rigged card games into engines of profit for organized crime.