David Purdum, Brian Windhorst, and Adrian Wojnarowski, ESPN

Toronto Raptors forward Jontay Porter is under investigation by the NBA following multiple instances of betting irregularities over the past several months, multiple sources told ESPN on Monday.

At issue are prop bets involving Porter from games on Jan. 26 and March 20, multiple sources told ESPN. An NBA spokesman told ESPN that the league is “looking into it.”

In the game on Jan. 26 against the LA Clippers, there was increased betting interest on the under for Porter props, which for the night were set at around 5.5 points, 4.5 rebounds and 1.5 assists. There was also an over/under for Porter’s made 3-pointers, which was 0.5.

That evening, Porter played just four minutes before leaving the game because of what the Raptors said was an aggravation of an eye injury he had suffered four days earlier against the Memphis Grizzlies. Porter did not score against the Clippers but had three rebounds and one assist, and he did not attempt a 3, meaning the under hit on all of the props.

The next day, as part of a daily report to users on betting results, DraftKings Sportsbook stated that the under on Porter’s 3-pointers was the biggest money winner for bettors of any NBA player props from games that evening.

Porter played 19 minutes two days later and scored 12 points with 7 rebounds and 3 assists.

On March 20 against the Sacramento Kings, Porter played just three minutes before exiting because of what the Raptors said was an illness and did not return. He did not score after attempting one shot and had two rebounds.

Sportsbooks had his over/unders set at around 7.5 points and 5.5 rebounds.

The next day, DraftKings Sportsbook reported in a media release that Porter’s prop bets were the No. 1 moneymaker from the night in the NBA.

At least one other U.S. sportsbook detected unusual betting interest on the Porter props in the games in question. A sportsbook industry source told ESPN that multiple betting accounts attempted to bet large amounts, upward of $10,000 and $20,000, on Porter unders in the January game against the Clippers. Betting limits on NBA player props vary by sportsbook and customer but are typically around $1,000 to $2,000.

“People were trying to do whatever they could to bet Jontay Porter props [against the Clippers],” the source said. “And then, just a few days ago, the same thing. We had a bunch of people trying to bet under for more.”

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Tisha Thompson, ESPN

The sports world was rocked this week by news that Shohei Ohtani‘s longtime interpreter and friend, Ippei Mizuhara, had been fired by the Los Angeles Dodgers.

But Mizuhara’s termination was only the latest sharp turn in a zigzagging, 48-hour journey that played out on two continents as ESPN reporters worked to answer questions about at least $4.5 million in wire transfers sent from Ohtani’s bank account to a bookmaking operation that is under federal investigation. It’s unclear whether that twist will be the last.

Two days after the account from Ohtani’s handlers evolved from superstar-bailing-out-his-friend to allegations of “massive theft,” questions remain, including who, if anyone, is investigating the alleged theft. Ohtani’s representatives said Thursday they had officially submitted the allegation to law enforcement but did not say to which authorities.

Multiple sources told ESPN that neither the California Bureau of Investigation nor the FBI was working the case. Spokespersons with the Los Angeles Police Department and district attorney’s offices in Los Angeles and Orange counties all said they were not investigating, and they indicated it was most likely a federal matter. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California declined to comment.

Sources, including Mizuhara, have told ESPN that Ohtani does not gamble and that the funds were transferred to cover Mizuhara’s losses. Multiple sources also said none of the betting was on baseball.

How this came to unfold publicly started with a tip ESPN received several months ago that would be pursued by multiple reporters. Information was gathered over that time frame, but it wasn’t until late Sunday that ESPN had enough confirmation to, for the first time, ask questions to key figures, including Major League Baseball officials, Ohtani representatives, federal law enforcement, the Dodgers and others.

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Associated Press, ESPN

Cleveland Cavaliers coach J.B. Bickerstaff revealed he received threats from gamblers last season and reported it to the NBA.

While being asked Wednesday night about sports gambling following comments made by Pacers All-Star Tyrese Haliburton, who said he sometimes feels like a “prop,” Bickerstaff said gamblers contacted him.

“They got my telephone number and were sending me crazy messages about where I live and my kids and all that stuff,” Bickerstaff said before the Cavs hosted the Miami Heat. “So it is a dangerous game and a fine line that we’re walking for sure.”

Bickerstaff said he told security and that the gambler was located.

“No charges,” Bickerstaff said. “But they found him.”

With sports gambling growing in the U.S., Bickerstaff, who is in his fourth full season with the Cavaliers, said his job has become more challenging.

“It brings added pressure,” he said. “It brings a distraction to the game that can be difficult for players, coaches, referees, everybody that’s involved in it. And I think that we really have to be careful with how close we let it get to the game and the security of the people who are involved in it.

“Because again, it does carry a weight. A lot of times the people who are gambling like this money pays their light bill or pay their rent, and then the emotions that come from that. So I do think we’re walking a very fine line and we have to be extremely careful in protecting everybody who’s involved.”

Because fans can bet on their phones in the arena — the Cavs have a sportsbook inside Rocket Mortage FieldHouse — Bickerstaff said the line between gambling and the game has never been closer.

“There’s no doubt about it that it’s crossed the line,” Bickerstaff said. “The amount of times where I’m standing up there and we may have a 10-point lead and the spread is 11 and people are yelling at me to leave the guys in so that we can cover the spread, it’s ridiculous.

“But again, I understand the business side of it and the nature of the business of it. But I mean, it is something that I believe has gone too far.”

Following a recent game in Cleveland, Minnesota center Rudy Gobert said he felt gambling is “hurting our game.”

Gobert made the comments after making a “money” gesture toward official Scott Foster, implying gambling was influencing the way the game was being called. He was fined $100,000, the maximum that the NBA could give under terms of the collective bargaining agreement that went into place last year.

Jeremy Roebuck, The Philadelphia Inquirer

A former executive at the community development nonprofit founded by Philadelphia music legend Kenny Gamble was convicted Wednesday of fleecing the organization out of more than a half-million dollars and then bribing an elected official in Milwaukee as part of a scheme to cover the cash crunch brought on by his theft.

A federal jury took roughly 10 hours to conclude that Rahim Islam, the former CEO of Universal Companies, looted the nonprofit by awarding himself five-figure bonuses without the approval of its board and embezzled hundreds of thousands of dollars more through reimbursements for personal expenses like $16,000 in gym membership fees and vacations with girlfriends to Orlando, Jamaica, and the Bahamas.

In all, prosecutors said, he, with assistance from Universal’s former CFO Shahied Dawan, drained roughly $571,000 from Universal’s coffers between 2011 and 2018 — all while the nonprofit struggled to come up with cash to support its core missions of providing affordable housing in blighted Philadelphia neighborhoods and educating children through the charter schools it operated across the city.

“You can’t be Big Willy on somebody else’s dime. You can’t live a high life with somebody else’s money,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Linwood C. Wright Jr. said during closing arguments Monday. “That money was meant to support schools; instead, it became a piggy bank, and [they] took full advantage of it.”

Islam, 66, now faces up to 20 years in prison on the most serious counts of conspiracy, wire fraud and honest services fraud for which he was convicted Wednesday.

The jury also convicted Dawan, 72, of one count of conspiring to cover up Islam’s thefts as well as $80,000 in unapproved bonuses he personally took home — a charge that could send him to prison for up to five years. But it acquitted the former accountant on 11 other charges, including all those connected to the political bribery scheme.

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Tisha Thompson, ESPN

The Los Angeles Dodgers interpreter for Shohei Ohtani was fired Wednesday afternoon after questions surrounding at least $4.5 million in wire transfers sent from Ohtani’s bank account to a bookmaking operation set off a series of events.

Ippei Mizuhara, the longtime friend and interpreter for Ohtani, incurred the gambling debts to a Southern California bookmaking operation that is under federal investigation, multiple sources told ESPN. How he came to lose his job started with reporters asking questions about the wire transfers.

Initially, a spokesman for Ohtani told ESPN the slugger had transferred the funds to cover Mizuhara’s gambling debt. The spokesman presented Mizuhara to ESPN for a 90-minute interview Tuesday night, during which Mizuhara laid out his account in great detail. However, as ESPN prepared to publish the story Wednesday, the spokesman disavowed Mizuhara’s account and said Ohtani’s lawyers would issue a statement.

“In the course of responding to recent media inquiries, we discovered that Shohei has been the victim of a massive theft, and we are turning the matter over to the authorities,” read the statement from Berk Brettler LLP.

The spokesman declined to answer any further questions, and the statement did not specify whom they believe perpetrated the alleged theft.

When asked by ESPN on Wednesday afternoon — after the Berk Brettler statement — if he had been accused of theft, Mizuhara said he was told he could not comment but declined to say by whom.

The developments this week came as federal investigators are examining the operation run by Southern California bookmaker Mathew Bowyer. The wire-transfer payments were sent from Ohtani’s account to an associate of Bowyer’s, according to multiple sources and bank data reviewed by ESPN. Multiple sources, including Mizuhara, told ESPN that Ohtani does not gamble and that the funds covered Mizuhara’s losses.

ESPN had reviewed bank information showing Ohtani’s name on two $500,000 payments sent in September and October.

While sports betting is legal in nearly 40 states, it remains illegal in California. Government-regulated sportsbooks require bettors to pay up front for their wagers, while illegal bookmakers accept bets on credit.

Sources close to the gambling operation told ESPN that Bowyer dealt directly with Mizuhara, who placed bets on international soccer matches and other sports — but not baseball — starting in 2021. A source said Bowyer was aware of the name on the wire transfers but chose not to ask any questions as long as payments came in; however, the source said Bowyer allowed people to believe Ohtani was a client in order to boost business.

Bowyer’s attorney, Diane Bass, told ESPN: “Mr. Bowyer never met or spoke with Shohei Ohtani.” She declined to answer any other questions.

During the Tuesday interview arranged by Ohtani’s spokesman, Mizuhara, 39, told ESPN that he asked Ohtani, 29, last year to pay off his gambling debt, which multiple sources said had ballooned to at least $4.5 million. Mizuhara said that he previously had placed bets via DraftKings and assumed bets placed through Bowyer were legal.

“Obviously, he [Ohtani] wasn’t happy about it and said he would help me out to make sure I never do this again,” Mizuhara said. “He decided to pay it off for me.

“I want everyone to know Shohei had zero involvement in betting. I want people to know I did not know this was illegal. I learned my lesson the hard way. I will never do sports betting ever again.”

But on Wednesday afternoon, Mizuhara told ESPN that Ohtani had no knowledge of his gambling debts and that Ohtani had not transferred money to the bookmaker’s associate.

Mizuhara and Ohtani are friends in addition to their professional relationship. Mizuhara has interpreted for Ohtani since the star moved to the United States in 2018, accompanying the two-way player in dugouts, locker rooms, player lounges, on trips, in media settings and elsewhere, making Mizuhara highly recognizable to baseball fans. He has been the interpreter for Ohtani with team managers and coaches and goes over scouting reports with Ohtani during games. The two are rarely separated. Mizuhara runs errands for the pitcher, carries his water bottle and is so ever-present that an Ohtani teammate once referred to the duo as having a “brotherhood” that goes beyond friendship.

Mizuhara had a contract with the Los Angeles Angels when Ohtani played there and signed with the Dodgers this offseason. Mizuhara confirmed to ESPN he has been paid between $300,000 and $500,000 annually.

Mizuhara told ESPN on Tuesday his bets were placed on international soccer, the NBA, the NFL and college football.

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Pat Forde, Sports Illustrated

Gambling watchdog company U.S. Integrity sent out an alert to casinos Thursday regarding unusual wagering activity on the UAB Blazers-Temple Owls men’s basketball game, the American Athletic Conference confirms to Sports Illustrated.

“We are aware they flagged it,” AAC men’s basketball director of communications Tom Fenstermaker says.

The betting line moved significantly during the day Thursday leading up to the game. At one casino, the line moved from UAB as a 1.5-point favorite over Temple at the beginning of the day to UAB as an eight-point favorite by mid-afternoon, then settling at seven closer to tip-off. The Blazers routed the Owls, 100–72, in Temple’s home gym, the Liacouras Center in Philadelphia.

That was the second straight loss for Temple and the second straight game in which the Owls did not come close to covering the spread. They were favored by 5.5 points Saturday at home against the Tulsa Golden Hurricane and lost by five. Tulsa opened the game by jumping out to a 16–2 lead and stayed ahead the rest of the way.

The Owls are 11–19 overall and 4–14 in league play in their first season under coach Adam Fisher. They are scheduled to end their regular season Sunday at the UTSA Roadrunners.

A source in the gambling space says U.S. Integrity has been monitoring Temple games for a while.

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John Barr, ESPN

Last spring, an NCAA survey of 18- to 22-year-olds found that 67% of college students living on campus had placed bets on sports. More than a third of those used a student bookmaker. ESPN’s Outside the Lines spoke with “Jack,” a former college athlete who said he became an agent for a bookmaker and took bets from about 55 to 60 people, including more than a dozen athletes. Two of them, he said, went on to play professional basketball and football. “Jack,” who spoke on condition of anonymity, was a practice squad player for a Division I basketball program in a Power 5 conference from 2017 to 2019.

Here is his story in his own words.

I was introduced to betting my freshman year of college. I thought being an athlete, I had knowledge about sports, I had knowledge about personnel. I started betting on football, basketball, baseball.

I started small, $20, $40. I bet illegally online through a bookie. I had grown up with him. He was at a different school, also a former athlete. You get a credit line, which is like monopoly money, and you bet it. At the end of the week, it becomes real money. Whatever your balance is what you owe or what you get paid. In the early days, it was never a problem. I usually lost between $100 to $200 max.

I started winning money, so I figured, oh man, this is easy. I can do this. Then it kind of snowballs on you. Before you know it, you’re waking up, what are we taking? What’s live right now? Going to breakfast, going to a workout, watching a game, having a game on my phone just to stimulate me. I had parlays going even in classes. It’s almost like surviving a car accident. You’re in the car and your heart’s beating, and your body’s in shock. That’s kind of to a miniature scale, the state of gambling. And I happen to like that feeling.

I started asking for more credit, anywhere from $2,000 to $5,000 at the beginning of my sophomore year. It’s like consuming any drug. You build a tolerance. It wasn’t getting me high enough with the little amounts of money anymore.

My sophomore or junior year, one of the guys I knew reached out to me and said, “Do you want to do this? Get guys on board.” My role as an agent was to get people on my sheet and then collect money from them or pay them out. I was probably the lowest on the chain for the operation. That’s how it works. These big guys get agents who can get a lot of people to get on their sheet, then they give them a percentage and they fund the book. I don’t even really know the true head guy.

I probably had 55-60 people on my sheet: students, athletes and parents of students. I took a lot of football bets from football players. They bet on their own team, other teams, basketball, football, you name it. I never took a bet on their own team to lose. A starter on the basketball team bet on the team once or twice, once on the over, another time on his team to win. He said, “I heard you’re the guy to go to. I had a guy in high school.”

My junior year and senior year I bet on the team. They were spread bets, moneyline bets.

I started taking my own money and putting it on the opposite gains of what people gave me to bet. I was definitely growing my addiction.

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Josh Peter, USA Today

The regulated U.S. sports betting industry raked in $10.9 billion in revenue last year, an increase of almost 45 percent from 2022, according to an annual report from the American Gaming Association (AGA).

The total wagered on sports last year was almost $120 billion, an increase of almost 30 percent from 2022, according to the report.

In 2022, the American sports betting industry took in $7.5 billion in revenue and slightly more than $93 billion was wagered, according to the AGA.

The AGA reported the overall growth in sports betting revenue was “largely fueled by continued maturation across most existing markets as well as several new markets, particularly in Massachusetts and Ohio.’’

Last year, Ohio made almost $937 million and Massachusetts took in $483 million, according to the AGA.

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David Purdum and Elizabeth Merrill, ESPN

In late 2002, a marketing firm trying to reinvent Las Vegas believed it had captured the allure of the city in a commercial worthy of the Super Bowl.

The ad features a woman in a silky blue top and stiletto boots sliding into a Vegas limousine. She flirts with the driver, tussling his hair, before disappearing from view. When they arrive at the airport, he opens the door and, to his surprise, the woman hops out dressed in business attire, her hair up in a tidy bun, talking on her phone.

The spot ends with five words: “What happens here, stays here.”

The ad never aired during the Super Bowl. Even though it had no ringing slot machines or roaring sportsbooks, the NFL refused to allow the commercial to run, citing a clause in its TV contracts prohibiting gambling-related ads. It was the best thing that could have happened, according to William “Billy” Vassiliadis, CEO of R&R Partners, the marketing firm behind the ad.

“We sent it to the network, and the NFL said no, and sent us a fairly terse email on ‘what stays here,'” Vassiliadis recalls, “and somehow that miraculously, magically got out and became a pretty big issue and, frankly, a great launch for the campaign.”

R&R Partners, according to a spokesperson, “went rogue” and ran the ad in local markets during the Super Bowl. The commercial the NFL wouldn’t air became a national story, with prominent news anchors, sitcoms such as “Frasier” and late-night talk shows joking about “What happens here, stays here.” Oscar Goodman, then the mayor of Las Vegas, says the publicity generated from the NFL’s refusal was worth tens of millions in advertising.

The slogan would become part of American lexicon. It inspired multiple movies, including “The Hangover” series, one trademark and countless bachelor and bachelorette parties. Former first lady Laura Bush even mentioned it in an appearance on “The Tonight Show” in 2004. She’d just come back from a trip to Las Vegas, and upon being quizzed by Jay Leno on what she did, she quipped, “Jay, what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.”

At the time the iconic advertising campaign launched, the NFL and Las Vegas were at odds but also, in some ways, pulling in the same direction. While the NFL was reinforcing its anti-sports betting stance, Las Vegas was trying to show it was more than just an old gambling town. What neither side knew was that a seismic shift was coming in America’s attitude toward gambling.

Twenty-one years later, the relationship between the NFL and Las Vegas has changed dramatically. Super Bowl LVIII comes to Allegiant Stadium, home of the Las Vegas Raiders, next week. It’s another milestone in the city’s transformation from a sports pariah into a big-game town and another step in the NFL’s acceptance of what was enemy No. 1 for decades — sports betting, an American pastime that happened in Vegas, but didn’t stay there.

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David Purdum, ESPN

An Indiana businessman and youth baseball coach has pleaded guilty to federal charges related to an investigation into a betting scheme on a college baseball game last spring, according to documents filed Wednesday in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Alabama.

Bert Eugene Neff of Marion County, Indiana, was charged with obstructing a federal investigation, including destroying evidence, tampering with witnesses and providing false statements to the FBI, according to the documents. Neff faces a maximum sentence of not more than 10 years and a fine up to $250,000.

The investigation stems from suspicious betting activity on an Alabama-LSU game on April 28, 2023, in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, that ultimately led to the firing of Crimson Tide baseball coach Brad Bohannon. Multiple sources familiar with what transpired told ESPN that Neff attempted to bet on LSU to win the game after communicating with Bohannon.

Federal authorities say Neff shared messages from an associate identified in the documents as “Individual 1” regarding an injury to a pitcher, resulting in a lineup change. Neff, according to the documents, shared a screenshot of the messages with multiple associates. Four gamblers wagered on the game, in addition to Neff, according to the documents.

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