NBA Scandals, The Rise Of Prediction Markets, Kalshi and Gambling Future

The headlines scream NBA arrests and rigged poker tables, but the bigger plot twist sits under the surface: the gambling world is reshaping itself around prediction markets that turn everything into a simple yes or no. We pull back the curtain on player prop fraud, how sportsbooks flag suspicious patterns with supercomputers, and why “easy money” is usually a story we tell ourselves when emotion outruns judgment. From faked injuries to abnormal betting spikes, we break down how these schemes unravel and why the logic never pencils out.

Then we widen the lens. Organized poker games with tech-assisted reads show what happens when the playing field isn’t fair. That lesson scales to modern betting platforms where incentives are invisible and the edge rarely sits with the player. The real momentum is flowing to event-based markets: elections, weather, sports, and cultural moments—all framed as clean binary choices. It feels like forecasting, but the engagement loop looks like gambling with better branding. That’s why major sportsbooks are partnering with exchanges and acquiring startups—to keep liquidity, fees, and attention inside their ecosystem.

We talk openly about money, recovery, and the psychology that turns micro-bets into daily habits. If your EQ lags your IQ, you won’t outthink a trigger; you’ll need guardrails that protect your time, cash, and focus. This is a candid look at where betting is going, how the industry nudges you toward more action, and what it takes to walk away with your peace—and your wallet—intact. If this resonates, share it with someone who needs a clear-eyed perspective on gambling’s new face, and hit follow to stay with us as we map the incentives shaping your choices.

Chapters

• 0:00 Big News And Arrests
• 0:19 Show Ethos And Recovery Values
• 1:00 Why Player Prop Fraud Happens
• 3:20 Mafia Poker Stings And Rigged Tables
• 5:50 The Real Story: Prediction Markets
• 8:00 Who Built The Platforms And Why
• 9:20 Sportsbooks Partner With Exchanges
• 12:03 Psychology, House Edge, And Money Mindset
• 13:30 Final Warning And Wrap

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:01

Big news this week. NBA arrests. One was involving player prop fraud. The other involved ex-players with fixed games, poker games. Welcome again to another episode of the 1% in recovery podcast, where we encourage you to laugh every day. To work hard. Work hard in relationships. Work hard in recovery. Work hard in your job, your business, school. Just work. And to love unconditionally. Just put much more love out there and watch much more love return. Remember, recovery is beautiful. Your EQ is your IQ, and you cannot outthink an emotional issue. Now we encourage people to do is to join the Facebook group, Recovery Freedom Circle. Link is within the show notes. It's a community where we talk about the steps, recovery, healing, goals, accomplishments. Also allow people to ask questions about recovery, the steps, in what other insights they may come up with from the community. Now let's join into this week's episode. Taking a couple days break from the series of the essence of the steps, because this is big news because there was big arrests. We're talking about the NBA arrests. First off, we have player prop Frog, which was Terry Rosier, as well as a few other players, where you've got to be kidding me and not think that these will get uncovered. We've had players uh banned for life in the NBA already for player prop. So what is player prop fraud? It's when someone bets on a player, let's say if it was Porter who got suspended for life, is how many threes they would make in a specific game. And it's either over or under. So the specific number could be two and a half. Now in Terry Rozier's case, it's other uh types of uh fraud, whether it's about points, three-point shooting. And if a player does not play in a game, the bet is nullified. He has to play at least one minute, he's got to be in the box score. But what happens so much with these so-called players thinking that they're gonna make a quick, what are they gonna make?$10,000,$50,000, maybe even$100,000, and they have million-dollar contracts. From a logical standpoint, it makes zero sense. From a mathematical standpoint, it makes zero sense. Now, from an emotional standpoint, it might be easy money. It might just be like, oh, this is my vacation money, this is my spending money. And what ends up happening is a player plays and then he fakes an injury or fakes sickness, checks himself out of a game. I think it was in Porter's case, it was he played only two minutes and he faked uh flu. Uh in Rosier's case, you know, it was always some type of he played about 11 minutes. Uh but eventually there's gonna be some type of abnormality within the betting system. And all these casinos have supercomputers and they're gonna notice any types of blips. So what's normal activity, maybe let's say five, ten, twenty thousand dollars on a specific player on a specific type of bet, and all of a sudden it shoots up tenfold, and all of a sudden there's a hundred thousand dollars on this actual player prop bet. Yes, all the sports books and casinos are going to investigate that number. Anything that pops up is a red flag. So you will get flagged easily. That's one thing. The other thing that happened was the whole thing with uh Chauncey Billups and other Hall of Fame players or ex-players playing in these poker games that were associated with the mafia rigged games in cities LA, Vegas, New York, Miami. Depends on the city. And the tables were all rigged, and these people had these so-called X-ray glasses where they could actually read the cards. And obviously, they'd invite some pro players, and some pro players felt like why are they all losing when they normally wouldn't lose these types of games? Um and so, and this is also nothing new to law enforcement because these happened back in 2022, 2023, prop betting up until uh 2024. So this isn't something that just happened, like the NBA season just started, and these and it just happened in the first two games. No, we're talking about investigations that have been going on for some time. But that's really not the story. The story really is around money because there's so much going on that it's becoming a minor situation compared to everything else that's going on with the predictions market. That is actually really the big story because the gaming companies do not want to cannibalize each other, where DraftKings and FanDuel, Bet365, MGM are all trying to get a piece of the sports book action and then lose out to the predictions market. What is a prediction market? A prediction market is an event-based betting. So it is usually a yes, no, up, down, over, under. And that's where actually gambling is becoming. It's becoming this almost like if you're at the roulette table and bet black or red, even though the green, zero, and double zero are still on the field. But a lot of this depend is moving towards this almost dummy down type of gambling. Yes, no, up, down, over, under. And it's be gonna overwhelm the actually sports books. So they are getting in type in what I call getting in bed with the predictions market. Now, the predictions market has to go through different types of regulatory control, different than sports book, which actually have to either go through state or federal bills that actually have to be passed for each state. That's why 38 states allow you to sports book. Now the big ones, obviously, California and Texas, you still cannot legally, and I say that kind of with a with a little bit of butter, legally bet. Now, people are always finding ways to, even here in Texas, to bet casino types of poker sportsbooks. But the predictions market goes through regulatory control, so you are going through the exchange houses and going through all their regulations. Now, what are the biggest prediction market models? Call SHE, which is actually the biggest, there's polymarket, and there's also been railbirds. And so they go through this type of, I guess, scrutiny, so then they can allow this type of betting. So, how did this all start? It all started with Calci, which was actually two people that met at MIT. There was a man, an American-born man, but of Lebanese background. Uh, his name is Tariq Mansoor, and there's a Brazilian woman who was classically trained in classic ballet, ballet dancing, and she actually worked eight years with the Bolshevik uh theater in Brazil. Name was Luna Lopez Lara, and they met at MIT, and then at when they started working in the financial industry, um, Tariq with Goldman and the Citadel, uh Luana with um Bridgewater and the Citadel, and they realized that so many financial decisions were actually put into some type of prediction model. And they kept thinking now, how can we bring what is being really used to move billions and almost trillions of dollars around the economy? And these financial institutions are making these types of decisions that they believe that the future was that it was also gonna hit the individual markets. Now, individuals are now gonna be using this for anything could be as a presidential election, a papal election, something weather related, any type of event. And then also say that into the sports. And so what is now happening is that you see FanDuel partnering with CME, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. You see the NHL, the National Hockey League, strike the first deal with a prediction-based market with call sheet, and that you can now place bets through the call sheet app, which is now available in all states. And then you have DraftKings buying out railbirds. So they're already. So to me, it says you've got to always follow the money. Follow the money, because that's what they're trying to do. They're trying to get you to bet, gamble, forecast, predict, whatever words you want to use, and so that they can get your money. They're not making any of these partnerships so then you have more options. This is all designed into psychology, into what makes it easier for people to get you to make some type of bet, some type of gamble. And in the end, they have it situated where you will lose. Over the long run, 99% of the people lose in gambling. And that is why I suggest you should not gamble because you're gonna end up being, you're gonna lose, just like me. I may win in sports betting, but I lost 10 times that in the stock market. So in the end, I lost. And I just urge people to really think about their own relationship with money. How does money drive their life? Because we all need money, we all have bills, we all have certain types of lifestyle needs, we all have kids and family that need money. So are we driven by money? Are we trying to get money in some types of ways? Because to me, is money is one of the drivers in life. And I'm gonna make a different podcast about the drivers of life. But this episode was mainly around the NBA arrests, but also something much bigger. The actual predictions market and how that's playing out in gambling, in life, and kind of where the actual industries are moving because they don't want to lose out. Understand that they are partnering or getting bought out because they all want a piece of your money. With that, we are going to conclude this episode of the 1% in recovery podcast.