Terry Rozier gambling controversy comes as sports betting parlaying popularity

NBA player Terry Rozier is accused of gambling on games he played in

and it comes at a time when sports betting keeps getting more popular. Rozier allegedly tipped off bettors before a March 2023 game that he would leave early due

to an injury. That allowed bettors to cash in on Rozier's lackluster performance

and Rozier allegedly received $200,000 for the tip. That's despite Rozier making more than $160

million in his NBA career. All it takes is one or one or two sort of athletes to sort of get greedy

and to have an incident like this. Sports betting is now legal in some fashion in 39 states

The industry posted a record $13.7 billion in revenue last year. That will only go up if large

states like Texas and California join in. California is like the golden goose. The industry

is going to double in size once California and Texas legalize. The big players in the industry

are DraftKings and FanDuel, who make up 77% of the market share

There are a couple other sort of smaller companies around the fringes

and many of them are sort of well-known casino properties in places like Las Vegas. For those living in states where it isn't legal, there's a way around the law

The first is illegal sports betting, which landed Dodgers star Shohei Ohtani's interpreter in trouble

Otherwise there a new player in the sports betting game prediction markets Cal Xi and Polymarket which are places places nominally for betting on things like elections but over the last few months have basically become sports books themselves

There's also daily fantasy sports games like Prize Picks and Underdog. It's basically sports betting in disguise

but you're betting on sort of individual player performances rather than team performances

and there's some other sort of niches to it. Meanwhile, Rozier's arrest comes at a time when sports leagues are embracing gambling

This regulated structure of legalized betting, we can monitor it in ways that were unimaginable years ago

However, Rozier's alleged point shaving happened in 2023, and the FBI bust didn't happen until this year

If your system is so good, why did it take two years for the FBI to catch these people

especially when the NBA already conducted its own investigation of Tara Rozier and by all accounts cleared him of any wrongdoing

It's not just the sports leagues embracing sports betting, but sports broadcasters as well

I'm staying away from the point spread, and I'm going Alabama team total over 29 and a half

It's commonplace for segments during sports broadcasts to be sponsored by the betting sites

It's even more common to see full-on commercials for them during timeouts

I see it as a problem for the children who are watching these games and heard sort of being fed gambling material without context and without understanding, for example, that gambling addiction exists

For Straight Arrow News, I'm Lauren Keenan. If you want more on this story, download the Straight Arrow News app or visit SAN.com