October 25, 2025 • 15 mins
Colin Cowherd reacts to the NBA gambling scandal featuring Portland Trail Blazers head coach Chauncey Billups, Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier, former NBA guard Damon Jones, and others. Colin breaks down the impact of the investigation, why legalized gambling is superior to risky offshore betting, and the future of betting on sports.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
The volume. Now it's time for this week's Redeemed Team Member,
brought to you by Hulu's Chad Powers. This week it's
Devonte Adams three touchdowns in London Rams crush the Jacksonville Jaguars.
Adams became the second player to have three touchdowns in
an international game. He and Stafford were dialed in. Chad
Powers is now streaming new episodes Tuesday on Hulu and
(00:24):
Hulu on Disney Plus for Bundle subscribers. Terms apply. Hi everybody,
it's Saturday. I don't do a ton of Saturday reactions
on my YouTube page for the volume. I've already settled
in watching some college football, got a good workout in
(00:45):
Like many of you, gonna go walk the dogs here
pretty quick. But I didn't think it was a really
interesting week with the story of Terry Rosier, Damon Jones,
the betting scandal in the NBA, and Chauncey Billups who
I mean, I've known so many people that have covered him,
liked him, respected him. But you have to look at
people based on actions, not ideals or not necessarily what
(01:12):
you think they are. Ultimately, people eventually show you who
they are with their actions and their personal life or
their professional life. But I think it's I wanted to
talk about this. So I've been doing sports talk to
radio and media for a long time plus thirty years.
And it all started in Las Vegas. Then I went
to Tampa. Then I went to Portland, Then I went
(01:33):
to ESPN, then I went to Fox. I've got great relationships,
but I've been around a long time, and anybody that
listened to me gosh back in Portland knows that I've
always been for basically, I mean, long before Barack Obama,
I was pro cannabis. I've always been pretty socially liberal
on that stuff. And I think anybody who's intellectually honest
(01:57):
would say I've been pro gambling forever. I believe in
legalizing things and then monitoring them and having total transparency.
You know, in rural counties. When I worked in Nevada,
prostitution was and I think still is legal in some
rural counties in Nevada. I would propose that safer than
unregulated prostitution, which we know is happening in America. So
(02:21):
I'm for legalizing virtually everything. And so then sports gambling
was legalized in America, and I have had three separate
deals with three companies currently hard Rock Bet. They've been
great partners. This is not something I pivoted to. I
always put my arms around disruptors, you know, from investing.
(02:44):
I think I'm a little bit entrepreneurial. I believe that
even if there's a stigma or a dark side to industries,
they're much better served being regulated and monitored. So sports
gambling is something that I was pretty familiar with because
my first job at a college, I got a job
in Las Vegas, and there were bad actors. But the
(03:06):
people that I knew that worked at the Las Vegas Hilton,
art Man Terras, I knew a little bit Roxy Rocksboro.
These were professionals. They were educated, they were really good
human beings, and it was an industry and they used
to owe a sort of And I didn't know Roxy
very well, but he was kind of a legend in
the business. Of the people that I knew that were
professional gamblers, the late Lem Banker, they understood the downside
(03:31):
to it. They had bad streaks, but they liked the
legality and the regulation and the monitoring of it. The
margins aren't that big anymore. The audience you are too sophisticated.
It's hard to win. I always thought it was much
easier to win betting the NFL than it is now
because you, the consumer are much smarter, You have more information.
(03:54):
But I have always been pro gambling and so but
what's interesting about society is that we understand even with pharmaceuticals.
Take pharmaceuticals that are monitored in manufacturing and post approval
by the FDA Food and Drug Administration. You can watch
a commercial for a medication and it will say side
(04:16):
effects include severe migraine, headaches and bleeding of the bowels,
and yet it's approved. Heart murmurs and your tongue will
fall out, But it's approved by the FDA because there
is viewed as a benefit to the drug, and they
will warn you about it. They'll be messaging on the
(04:38):
bottle or the casing. We understand that one of the
knocks on sports gambling has been well, whenever there's an incident,
and again we understand the vagaries and there are losers
in I mean, people died initially when Viagra came out,
you know, swallowed twelve blue diamond shaped pills. We understand that,
(04:59):
and we with pharmaceuticals, we accept it. With alcohol. We
know there's binge drinking, we know there's drunk drivers. We
don't shut down bars over it. We don't stop alcohol sales.
If there's insider trading, we don't shut down Wall Street.
But it is interesting because when gambling, and when you
get a moment like Terry Rozier or Tim Donnegie. Now
(05:21):
Donnigie was pre approved gambling, legalized gambling, and so once
the Supreme Court ruled in favor of legalized gambling, it
started spreading across the country. And the knock on gambling
has been well, there's no societal benefit, Well, there's an
economic benefit. Take venture capitalism VC. Do you know the
nickname for venture capitalism? Because I could argue what's the
(05:42):
societal benefit of venture capitalism? Its nickname is vulture capitalism.
The societal benefit is the economy that it can create
companies and add jet fuel to companies that drive economies,
stay welcome in VC companies all the time, create jobs
(06:07):
sort of like sports gambling, FanDuel, DraftKings, price picks, or
hard rock bet. They employed tens of thousands of people.
That's why once it was legalized, the rollout throughout America
was very quick and very very understood to be an
economic driver in jurisdiction, states, counties, not as much as
(06:27):
many believe, sometimes more, but there is an economic benefit.
And with venture capitalism or alcohol or legalized cannabis and
sports gambling, there's winners and some losers. But I have
as the story broke in the NBA again, I didn't
pivot to this position. This has always been my position
(06:49):
from the first days of doing local sports talk radio
in Portland, Oregon. Which is legalized stuff, then it can
be monitored, right. I hear people, and I think it's
a legitimate concern about prop bets, you know, in game betting,
prop bets, and some which suggest you can only bet
the over, not the under. I mean if a guy
(07:09):
drops fifty and the over under was twenty four, good
for the team, good for him. That's interesting. But you
want it regulated because if you eliminate the legalization of
prop bets in America, then it will go offshore, and
that is dark. That's a pirate ship that is completely
unregulated and scary. I don't know people, but there's hundreds
(07:34):
thousands of stories of people who lost their butt offshore gambling.
I want regulation, I want monitoring and we bake all
of that in with everything else. We bake it in
with alcohol. What's the societal benefit of alcohol? Well, I
(07:54):
mean NAPA drove some economy. It drives economy from distribution
to consumption by consumer. It drives bars and wineries and distributors,
and it you know, it can drive traffic into wine
stores and grocery stores. Right, every state is different with
alcohol regulation, just like sports gambling, but there's viewed as
(08:18):
sort of a social lubrication and economic benefit I think
was sports gambling I've said before, is you know you're
sitting in a room with guys and you want some juice,
you want some fun. I get it, I've been. I've
been doing it since I moved to Vegas out of college.
It's fun. It adds something I never got much back
then five to ten bucks now fifty bucks. But it
(08:40):
adds juice. It's fun in an afternoon sitting there. And
that's why that competition, that energy, that juice is why
you need constant monitoring in professional sports. Remember this, and
I think most of you know this by now. Do
you know who caught the Terry Rosey or gambling FanDuel
(09:01):
within the hour notified the NBA, we've got a problem.
Do you know who notified the NBA about Tim Donneghey Vegas.
The margins are thin for all these companies because of you,
the consumer that's more sophisticated. They don't want cheats or
scoundrels or bad actors. That's not good for them. But
(09:21):
I don't want sports gambling to go off shore. That's
not good for you. That's not good for our domestic consumers.
That's no good. As long as people are to me,
I don't think my position has changed forever. I have
been pro stigma. They're going to exist. You're not going
(09:42):
to shut down alcohol sales. You're not going to shut
down cannabis. I grew up in Washington State. It was
the state Flower. I mean, who are we kidding? I
mean I grew up in the sticks. You could get
bags a pot in the seventies or eighties. You think
you're going to stop the use just regularly. Have some
transparencies and agencies that at least alert people to bad actions.
(10:07):
I mean, Terry Rozier should know better. Chauncey Billups fooled
a lot of people allegedly. Damon Jones, what are you doing?
You're connected to Lebron What are you doing? And I
know people that know all of these people. But I
also know people that have gotten into a car and
had too much to drink. So and I'm not proud
(10:30):
to say it, and I'm not happy about it, but
we don't ban stuff. So I've always had this just
sort of understanding, and I've said this for years and years.
I'm not a moralist. I can be critical of myself,
I can be critical of others. I can be critical
of athletes. I try to be fair. Baker Mayfield's good.
I'm now very pro Baker Mayfield. I didn't like him
(10:51):
right out of college, thought he was too cocky, but
I'm trying to be fair about it. My position in
life is largely people may mistakes. I mean venture capitalism.
Venture capitalism wasn't created because it's great for humanity. Vulture
capitalism was created because it can often stimulate and benefit
(11:13):
economies to some degree. That's sports gambling leagues are always
looking for new models, new avenues. I mean, for years
and years the NBA support of the WNBA subsidized the
doesn't make any money off it. They were hoping it
would grow at a faster pace. Than Caitlin Clark arrives
and suddenly they're filling arenas. Right, But you know, these
(11:36):
professional leagues are always looking for better deals from networks.
That's why streaming is such a powerful lever for the
NFL and the NBA. They can go to networks like
Fox and ABC and CBS and ESBN and SA we
want more. Right, here comes Netflix, here comes Amazon, we
want more. It's a lever to increase the annual revenue,
(11:59):
and I think gambling falls into that if you can
add two percent revenue on contracts. I don't love everything
about it. It really appalls me that any fan would
go up to any professional athlete and bag on him, saying, hey,
you lost me money. That makes me sick. That makes
(12:19):
me sick. But insider trading makes me sick. And people
getting into cars nine cocktails in makes me sick. And
I can never quite figure out how the FDA approves
a drug that makes my bowels bleed potentially or gives
me migrains, but it's understood the benefit can outweigh the negative,
the vagaries, the problems, the incidents, the disruption of society negatively.
(12:43):
So I thought most of the coverage was excellent by
the way. You know, I kind of look at sports,
gambling and sports the way I look at politics. I
don't trust the pundits or the politicians. I trust you.
I trust the people. Political pundits are overwhelmingly left leaning
in my lifetime. The media is mostly left leaning. That's
(13:04):
why Fox News had such an ascension forever, because they
were the one place for a long time that was
a conservative viewpoint. The liberals just left it wide open,
and Rupert Murdoch took advantage of it. I always trust
the people. Even during elections, they like Trump. Trump was
too much. They went to sleepy Joe. We'll see it
the midterms. Trump's very active, loud, There's a lot of
(13:29):
stuff going on. Americans get uncomfortable with it. At the midterms.
They may be like, you know what we want to
I want to bring the temperature down. I've always trusted you.
I don't trust traditional anything, but you clearly enjoy placing
a ten dollar bet. And that's kind of the average.
By the way, I've asked all these companies that I
go into business with, what's the average bet. Shockingly, it's
(13:51):
four dollars. Four dollars doesn't mean there's not going to
be somebody that spins out of control. Absolutely, And there
are people that can't regulate or modify their food consumption,
their alcohol consumption, drug consumption. That's just that's part of
the freedoms and liberties that we all enjoy. You have
a right to wreck your life, but overwhelmingly most of
(14:14):
you don't. We hear about the ones that do. I
tell people all the time my business, we talk about
crashed landings, not safe landings. That's not clickbait. That's what
people are interested in. Right, There's no reason for me
to go on the air if I work in the
aviation industry and I'm a reporter to talk about, well,
there's another safe landing in Orlando today, the thirty eighth straight.
It's eleven am. There's a crash once a year in Orlando.
(14:38):
That's news. Safe landings aren't news. Crash landings are. And
so the Terry Rose ear story, it's rare, it's infrequent,
it's sad, it sucks. I will always be on the
side of transparency and regulation. And Fanduels spotted that puppy
in fifteen minutes, and Vegas spotted Tim Donneghe within twenty
four hours. That's the side I've always been on. It's
(14:59):
the side I'm always going to be on. The value
The volume. Now it's time for this week's Redeemed Team Member,
brought to you by Hulu's Chad Powers. This week it's
Devonte Adams three touchdowns in London Rams crush the Jacksonville Jaguars.
Adams became the second player to have three touchdowns in
an international game. He and Stafford were dialed in. Chad
Powers is now streaming new episodes Tuesday on Hulu and
(00:24):
Hulu on Disney Plus for Bundle subscribers. Terms apply. Hi everybody,
it's Saturday. I don't do a ton of Saturday reactions
on my YouTube page for the volume. I've already settled
in watching some college football, got a good workout in
(00:45):
Like many of you, gonna go walk the dogs here
pretty quick. But I didn't think it was a really
interesting week with the story of Terry Rosier, Damon Jones,
the betting scandal in the NBA, and Chauncey Billups who
I mean, I've known so many people that have covered him,
liked him, respected him. But you have to look at
people based on actions, not ideals or not necessarily what
(01:12):
you think they are. Ultimately, people eventually show you who
they are with their actions and their personal life or
their professional life. But I think it's I wanted to
talk about this. So I've been doing sports talk to
radio and media for a long time plus thirty years.
And it all started in Las Vegas. Then I went
to Tampa. Then I went to Portland, Then I went
(01:33):
to ESPN, then I went to Fox. I've got great relationships,
but I've been around a long time, and anybody that
listened to me gosh back in Portland knows that I've
always been for basically, I mean, long before Barack Obama,
I was pro cannabis. I've always been pretty socially liberal
on that stuff. And I think anybody who's intellectually honest
(01:57):
would say I've been pro gambling forever. I believe in
legalizing things and then monitoring them and having total transparency.
You know, in rural counties. When I worked in Nevada,
prostitution was and I think still is legal in some
rural counties in Nevada. I would propose that safer than
unregulated prostitution, which we know is happening in America. So
(02:21):
I'm for legalizing virtually everything. And so then sports gambling
was legalized in America, and I have had three separate
deals with three companies currently hard Rock Bet. They've been
great partners. This is not something I pivoted to. I
always put my arms around disruptors, you know, from investing.
(02:44):
I think I'm a little bit entrepreneurial. I believe that
even if there's a stigma or a dark side to industries,
they're much better served being regulated and monitored. So sports
gambling is something that I was pretty familiar with because
my first job at a college, I got a job
in Las Vegas, and there were bad actors. But the
(03:06):
people that I knew that worked at the Las Vegas Hilton,
art Man Terras, I knew a little bit Roxy Rocksboro.
These were professionals. They were educated, they were really good
human beings, and it was an industry and they used
to owe a sort of And I didn't know Roxy
very well, but he was kind of a legend in
the business. Of the people that I knew that were
professional gamblers, the late Lem Banker, they understood the downside
(03:31):
to it. They had bad streaks, but they liked the
legality and the regulation and the monitoring of it. The
margins aren't that big anymore. The audience you are too sophisticated.
It's hard to win. I always thought it was much
easier to win betting the NFL than it is now
because you, the consumer are much smarter, You have more information.
(03:54):
But I have always been pro gambling and so but
what's interesting about society is that we understand even with pharmaceuticals.
Take pharmaceuticals that are monitored in manufacturing and post approval
by the FDA Food and Drug Administration. You can watch
a commercial for a medication and it will say side
(04:16):
effects include severe migraine, headaches and bleeding of the bowels,
and yet it's approved. Heart murmurs and your tongue will
fall out, But it's approved by the FDA because there
is viewed as a benefit to the drug, and they
will warn you about it. They'll be messaging on the
(04:38):
bottle or the casing. We understand that one of the
knocks on sports gambling has been well, whenever there's an incident,
and again we understand the vagaries and there are losers
in I mean, people died initially when Viagra came out,
you know, swallowed twelve blue diamond shaped pills. We understand that,
(04:59):
and we with pharmaceuticals, we accept it. With alcohol. We
know there's binge drinking, we know there's drunk drivers. We
don't shut down bars over it. We don't stop alcohol sales.
If there's insider trading, we don't shut down Wall Street.
But it is interesting because when gambling, and when you
get a moment like Terry Rozier or Tim Donnegie. Now
(05:21):
Donnigie was pre approved gambling, legalized gambling, and so once
the Supreme Court ruled in favor of legalized gambling, it
started spreading across the country. And the knock on gambling
has been well, there's no societal benefit, Well, there's an
economic benefit. Take venture capitalism VC. Do you know the
nickname for venture capitalism? Because I could argue what's the
(05:42):
societal benefit of venture capitalism? Its nickname is vulture capitalism.
The societal benefit is the economy that it can create
companies and add jet fuel to companies that drive economies,
stay welcome in VC companies all the time, create jobs
(06:07):
sort of like sports gambling, FanDuel, DraftKings, price picks, or
hard rock bet. They employed tens of thousands of people.
That's why once it was legalized, the rollout throughout America
was very quick and very very understood to be an
economic driver in jurisdiction, states, counties, not as much as
(06:27):
many believe, sometimes more, but there is an economic benefit.
And with venture capitalism or alcohol or legalized cannabis and
sports gambling, there's winners and some losers. But I have
as the story broke in the NBA again, I didn't
pivot to this position. This has always been my position
(06:49):
from the first days of doing local sports talk radio
in Portland, Oregon. Which is legalized stuff, then it can
be monitored, right. I hear people, and I think it's
a legitimate concern about prop bets, you know, in game betting,
prop bets, and some which suggest you can only bet
the over, not the under. I mean if a guy
(07:09):
drops fifty and the over under was twenty four, good
for the team, good for him. That's interesting. But you
want it regulated because if you eliminate the legalization of
prop bets in America, then it will go offshore, and
that is dark. That's a pirate ship that is completely
unregulated and scary. I don't know people, but there's hundreds
(07:34):
thousands of stories of people who lost their butt offshore gambling.
I want regulation, I want monitoring and we bake all
of that in with everything else. We bake it in
with alcohol. What's the societal benefit of alcohol? Well, I
(07:54):
mean NAPA drove some economy. It drives economy from distribution
to consumption by consumer. It drives bars and wineries and distributors,
and it you know, it can drive traffic into wine
stores and grocery stores. Right, every state is different with
alcohol regulation, just like sports gambling, but there's viewed as
(08:18):
sort of a social lubrication and economic benefit I think
was sports gambling I've said before, is you know you're
sitting in a room with guys and you want some juice,
you want some fun. I get it, I've been. I've
been doing it since I moved to Vegas out of college.
It's fun. It adds something I never got much back
then five to ten bucks now fifty bucks. But it
(08:40):
adds juice. It's fun in an afternoon sitting there. And
that's why that competition, that energy, that juice is why
you need constant monitoring in professional sports. Remember this, and
I think most of you know this by now. Do
you know who caught the Terry Rosey or gambling FanDuel
(09:01):
within the hour notified the NBA, we've got a problem.
Do you know who notified the NBA about Tim Donneghey Vegas.
The margins are thin for all these companies because of you,
the consumer that's more sophisticated. They don't want cheats or
scoundrels or bad actors. That's not good for them. But
(09:21):
I don't want sports gambling to go off shore. That's
not good for you. That's not good for our domestic consumers.
That's no good. As long as people are to me,
I don't think my position has changed forever. I have
been pro stigma. They're going to exist. You're not going
(09:42):
to shut down alcohol sales. You're not going to shut
down cannabis. I grew up in Washington State. It was
the state Flower. I mean, who are we kidding? I
mean I grew up in the sticks. You could get
bags a pot in the seventies or eighties. You think
you're going to stop the use just regularly. Have some
transparencies and agencies that at least alert people to bad actions.
(10:07):
I mean, Terry Rozier should know better. Chauncey Billups fooled
a lot of people allegedly. Damon Jones, what are you doing?
You're connected to Lebron What are you doing? And I
know people that know all of these people. But I
also know people that have gotten into a car and
had too much to drink. So and I'm not proud
(10:30):
to say it, and I'm not happy about it, but
we don't ban stuff. So I've always had this just
sort of understanding, and I've said this for years and years.
I'm not a moralist. I can be critical of myself,
I can be critical of others. I can be critical
of athletes. I try to be fair. Baker Mayfield's good.
I'm now very pro Baker Mayfield. I didn't like him
(10:51):
right out of college, thought he was too cocky, but
I'm trying to be fair about it. My position in
life is largely people may mistakes. I mean venture capitalism.
Venture capitalism wasn't created because it's great for humanity. Vulture
capitalism was created because it can often stimulate and benefit
(11:13):
economies to some degree. That's sports gambling leagues are always
looking for new models, new avenues. I mean, for years
and years the NBA support of the WNBA subsidized the
doesn't make any money off it. They were hoping it
would grow at a faster pace. Than Caitlin Clark arrives
and suddenly they're filling arenas. Right, But you know, these
(11:36):
professional leagues are always looking for better deals from networks.
That's why streaming is such a powerful lever for the
NFL and the NBA. They can go to networks like
Fox and ABC and CBS and ESBN and SA we
want more. Right, here comes Netflix, here comes Amazon, we
want more. It's a lever to increase the annual revenue,
(11:59):
and I think gambling falls into that if you can
add two percent revenue on contracts. I don't love everything
about it. It really appalls me that any fan would
go up to any professional athlete and bag on him, saying, hey,
you lost me money. That makes me sick. That makes
(12:19):
me sick. But insider trading makes me sick. And people
getting into cars nine cocktails in makes me sick. And
I can never quite figure out how the FDA approves
a drug that makes my bowels bleed potentially or gives
me migrains, but it's understood the benefit can outweigh the negative,
the vagaries, the problems, the incidents, the disruption of society negatively.
(12:43):
So I thought most of the coverage was excellent by
the way. You know, I kind of look at sports,
gambling and sports the way I look at politics. I
don't trust the pundits or the politicians. I trust you.
I trust the people. Political pundits are overwhelmingly left leaning
in my lifetime. The media is mostly left leaning. That's
(13:04):
why Fox News had such an ascension forever, because they
were the one place for a long time that was
a conservative viewpoint. The liberals just left it wide open,
and Rupert Murdoch took advantage of it. I always trust
the people. Even during elections, they like Trump. Trump was
too much. They went to sleepy Joe. We'll see it
the midterms. Trump's very active, loud, There's a lot of
(13:29):
stuff going on. Americans get uncomfortable with it. At the midterms.
They may be like, you know what we want to
I want to bring the temperature down. I've always trusted you.
I don't trust traditional anything, but you clearly enjoy placing
a ten dollar bet. And that's kind of the average.
By the way, I've asked all these companies that I
go into business with, what's the average bet. Shockingly, it's
(13:51):
four dollars. Four dollars doesn't mean there's not going to
be somebody that spins out of control. Absolutely, And there
are people that can't regulate or modify their food consumption,
their alcohol consumption, drug consumption. That's just that's part of
the freedoms and liberties that we all enjoy. You have
a right to wreck your life, but overwhelmingly most of
(14:14):
you don't. We hear about the ones that do. I
tell people all the time my business, we talk about
crashed landings, not safe landings. That's not clickbait. That's what
people are interested in. Right, There's no reason for me
to go on the air if I work in the
aviation industry and I'm a reporter to talk about, well,
there's another safe landing in Orlando today, the thirty eighth straight.
It's eleven am. There's a crash once a year in Orlando.
(14:38):
That's news. Safe landings aren't news. Crash landings are. And
so the Terry Rose ear story, it's rare, it's infrequent,
it's sad, it sucks. I will always be on the
side of transparency and regulation. And Fanduels spotted that puppy
in fifteen minutes, and Vegas spotted Tim Donneghe within twenty
four hours. That's the side I've always been on. It's
(14:59):
the side I'm always going to be on. The value
Hosts And Creators
Colin Cowherd
Jason McIntyre
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