Sports betting has become so ubiquitous and so massive in the US that it can be difficult to remember that at the start of 2018, it was only legal in four states, and only in Nevada could you bet on individual games.

All that changed in May of that year, when the Supreme Court stuck down the federal law that barred most forms of sports gambling. Since then, the legal sports gambling industry has spread to 38 states plus Washington, DC, with revenues of nearly $14 billion in 2024, much of which has come from burgeoning and highly addictive mobile apps like DraftKings and FanDuel.

The reason why sports betting was off-limits for so long was because of concerns that the sheer money involved could lead to scandals that would call into question the integrity of sports games.

Well, guess what? On Thursday, as part of a joint federal, state, and city investigation, the FBI announced at a Brooklyn press conference indictments of three current and former NBA players — including one well-known coach who’s in the Hall of Fame — for........

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