The federal investigation into an alleged illegal gambling tied to numerous NBA stars is still ongoing, but basketball legend Shaquille O’Neal is formally speaking his mind about the unraveling controversy.<\/p>\n
Speaking on ESPN\u2019s Inside the NBA<\/a> this past Thursday, the retired NBA icon spoke with his fellow TV hosts Ernie Johnson, Charles Barkley and Kenny Smith about the recent scandal, which saw the shocking arrests of roughly three dozen individuals.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n Above all else, NBA head coach Chauncey Billups, Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier and former Cleveland Cavaliers point Damon Jones were all arrested as a result of the sweeping investigation.<\/p>\n Taking to the stage, the 53-year-old O’Neal spoke about how personally “ashamed” he was of the incident, as well as each man’s involvement in the case, which purportedly has ties to the Mafia.<\/p>\n “We all know the letter of the law when it comes to gambling and sports gambling and I don\u2019t want to sit up here like I\u2019m some perfect guy,\u201d O\u2019Neal said. \u201cEvery now and then, when I go to Vegas, I\u2019ll play some craps and I\u2019ll play some roulette but I never gambled at anyone\u2019s house. Don\u2019t know anything about poker.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s an old saying in the \u2018hood: \u2018All money ain\u2019t good money,\u2019” O’Neal continued. \u201cSo if you\u2019re making $9 million \u2026 like, how much more do you need? Especially if you know you get caught, you could do jail time, lose your career, put a bad image on yourself, your family or on the NBA.\u201d<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n In short, the former Los Angeles Laker bluntly concluded, “They dropped the ball.”<\/p>\n The arrest and indictments against the 31 defendants in the case falls into two separate cases involving fraud, according to U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York Joseph Nocella Jr. (via People<\/a>).<\/p>\n \u201cOne involves sports betting and the other involves illegal gambling,\u201d Nocella Jr. said of the cases. \u201cThe first indictment involves six defendants who are alleged to have participated, one of the most brazen sports corruption schemes since online sports betting became widely legalized in the United States. This scheme is an insider sports betting conspiracy that exploited confidential information about National Basketball Association athletes and teams.\u201d<\/p>\n This story was originally reported by Parade<\/a> on Oct 24, 2025, where it first appeared in the News<\/a> section. Add Parade as a Preferred Source by clicking here.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The federal investigation into an alleged illegal gambling tied to numerous NBA stars is still ongoing, but basketball…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":238777,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[557],"tags":[64,63,24057,27164,17603,141140,142829,24060,142830,7223,590,24058,85,41165],"class_list":{"0":"post-238776","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-charles-barkley","11":"tag-chauncey-billups","12":"tag-cleveland-cavaliers","13":"tag-damon-jones","14":"tag-ernie-johnson","15":"tag-kenny-smith","16":"tag-los-angeles-laker","17":"tag-miami-heat","18":"tag-nba","19":"tag-shaquille-oneal-2","20":"tag-sports","21":"tag-terry-rozier"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238776","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=238776"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238776\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/238777"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=238776"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=238776"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=238776"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}