The Herd with Colin Cowherd - Colin Cowherd Podcast - NBA Gambling Scandal Reaction: Future of sports betting

Episode Date: October 26, 2025

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. (Timestamps may vary based on advertisements.) Follow Colin and The Volume on Twitter for the latest content and updates!  #VolumeSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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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 Devonthe 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 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 like many of you, going to go walk the dogs here pretty quick. But I did think it was a really interesting week with the story of Terry Rozier, 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 you think they are. Ultimately, people eventually show you who they are with their actions in their personal life or their professional life. So, but I think it's, I wanted to talk about this. So I've been doing sports talk radio and media for a long time, plus 30 years. And it all started in Las Vegas.

Then I went to Tampa. Then I went to Portland. Then I went 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-cannibus. I've always been pretty socially liberal on that stuff.

And I think anybody who's intellectually honest 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 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. 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 people that I knew that worked at the Las Vegas Hilton, Art Manterris, I knew a little bit Roxy Roxburgh. 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. The people that I knew that were professional gamblers, the late Lem banker, they understood the downside 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. And, 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 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 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 12 blue diamond-shaped pills. We understand it. And we accept it 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, we accept alcohol sales. If there's, we know there's insider trading. We don't shut down Wall Street. But it is interesting because when gambling, when you get a moment like Terry Rozier or Tim Donaggy, now Donaghy, he 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 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, states, welcome in VC companies all the time, create jobs, sort of like sports gambling, Fandil, draft king. 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 many believe, sometimes more, but there is a economic benefit. And with venture capitalism or alcohol or legalize

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 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 that. you can only bet the over, not the under. I mean, if a guy drops 50 and the over under was 24, 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, thousands of stories of people who lost their but 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 mean, in Napa, it 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 sort of a social lubrication and economic benefit. I think with 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 doing it since I moved to Vegas out of college. It's fun.

It adds something. I never bet much. back then, five to ten bucks, now 50 bucks. But it 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 Rose Ear gambling? Fandoul, within the hour, notified the NBA. We've got a problem.

Do you know who notified the NBA about Tim Donegie? 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 I don't want sports gambling to go offshore. 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 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 of pot in the 70s or 80s. You think you're going to stop the use? Just regulate it. Have some transparencies and agencies that at least alert people to bad actions. I mean, Terry Roseir should know better. Chonsie 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 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'm not, 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 right out of college. Thought he was too cocky, but I'm trying to be fair about it. I, my position in life is largely, people make 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 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 supported the WNBA, subsidized it. They didn't make any money off it. They were holding. hoping it would grow at a faster pace than Caitlin Clark arrives and suddenly they're filling arenas, right? But, you know, these 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 ESPN and say, we want more, right? Here comes Netflix. Here comes Amazon.

We want more. It's a lever to increase the annual revenue. And I think sports gambling falls into that. If you can add 2% 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 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 migraints, but it's understood the benefit can outweigh the negative, the vagaries, the problems, the incidents, the disruption of society negatively. 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 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 at the midterms. Trump's very active, loud. There's a lot of stuff going on. Americans get uncomfortable with it. At the midterms, they may be like, you know what, we want to bring the temperature down. I've always trusted you. I don't trust traditional anything. But you clearly enjoy placing a $10 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 $4. $4. 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 you don't. We hear about the ones that do. I tell people all the time. My business, we talk about crash landings, not safe landing.

that's not clickbait. That's what people are interested in. 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 38 straight, it's 11 a.m. There's a crash once a year in Orlando. That's news. Safe landings aren't news. Crash landings are. And so the Terry Rozier story, it's rare, it's infrequent, it's sad, it sucks. I will always be on the side of transparency and regulation and Fandul's Span. spotted that puppy in 15 minutes. And Vegas spotted Tim Donaggy within 24 hours. That's the side I've always been on. It's the side I'm always going to be on. The Volume. Hey guys, it's us.

The Jonas Brothers. I'm Joe. I'm Kevin. And I'm Nick. And guess what? We created our own podcast called, Hey, Jonas. We invented a podcast? Well, we didn't invent it.

We just contributed to it. We're the first people to do podcasts. We get to ask other people questions because we're sick and tired of being asked questions. Well, sick and tired is a strong way to put it, but, you know, tired and sick. Tired and sick. Listen to Hey Jonas on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts,

or wherever you get your podcast. Just listen. We don't care where you hear it. What's up, fam? It's Isaiah Thomas. And I'm C.J. Toledano. It's our favorite time of the year on our podcast point game, the playoffs. We're digging into the biggest surprises of the season.

And I'm looking back on some of my greatest playoff moments. If we didn't talk ever again, I was part of you. You just understood. That's how personal it got. Wow. Then after that game seven, Marquiskeep coming to him. He's like, you know, I love. love you, dog. You know, it's all love. This was just playoffs. This was just basketball.

So listen to Point Game on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Every family has its secrets. But what happens when you discover that your dad has been living a double life? That is not the look of an innocent man. Is everyone lying to me about who they are? I felt such desperation. I felt it was what I had to do. Listen to Deep Cover the Family Man on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Turn someday into right now with Buddy by Jake Radio. Non-stop workout music and expert tips 24-7. Hey, head over to iHeart.com.

Search Body by Jake Radio and stream it for free right now. Awesome health and wellness tips 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Remember, stick to the fight. When your hardest hit, it's when things seem worse that you must not quit. Don't quit. Body by Jake Radio, where hope meets momentum. Search Body by Jake Radio and stream it for free. Have a great day.

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