FORT WORTH, Texas — Between playing and coaching, Tim Jankovich spent his entire adult life in basketball, and although he’s been out of the game for three years, he believes the gambling problem is exponentially bigger than we may believe.

“I think there is a lot of corruption. There is more point shaving, if you want to call it that, going on than what has come out,” he said. “Talking to some coaching friends, they know of some things that have happened that have not come out, and I think it’s very dangerous.”

Jankovich coached college basketball from 1983 to 2022. He was the head coach at North Texas, from 1993 to ‘97, Illinois State from 2007 to ‘12 and at SMU from 2016 to his retirement three years ago.

He was leaving just as college sports was changing with the allowance of NIL dollars and the transfer portal. He was leaving as America’s relationship with gambling was no longer reserved for Las Vegas, Atlantic City and the back room of cigar shops, pizza places and liquor stores.

He was leaving as the NBA embraced legalized gambling, and the other top sports leagues in North America followed. Since then, there has been a trickle of examples of players betting on games, or, in classic terms, “point shaving” and “throwing games.”

Arrests of Billups, Rozier

On Thursday morning, the director of the FBI announced in a press conference that Portland Trail Blazers coach Chauncey Billups and Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier were arrested as part of an investigation related to sports gambling and rigged poker games.

Included in the indictments is former Dallas Mavericks guard Damon Jones, who played for the team in 1999-2000. He played for 10 teams over an 11-year career, then later was an assistant coach for the Cleveland Cavaliers and an unofficial assistant with the Los Angeles Lakers, where he is alleged to have engaged in “insider trading” regarding the health of a prominent player, believed to be LeBron James.

Billups was busted allegedly as a part of a bizarre underground poker game that was funded by organized crime.

The allegations against Rozier suggest he took himself out of games early with a supposed injury to impact prop bets and other wagers.

As is often the case with high-profile, or celebrity indictments and arrests, there are some theatrics and grandstanding here. There are also troubling allegations that are just another example of players now taking money on the side that affects the final outcome.

Because it is just so easy.

In the last few years, MLB, NFL, NCAA and the NBA all have examples of players who have been busted for either betting on games, or effectively tanking to affect a bet.

Forget any sanctimonious spewing sermon about pro sports foolishly believing these types of things would not happen. Once crazy money is involved, there is never enough, and people will compromise whatever principle, or violate any law, to get more of it.

Long history of sports-betting scandals

It used to be these types of stories were outliers. Stories like Arizona State guard Stevin “Hedake” Smith, who was sentenced to a year in prison for fixing games in the early ‘90s, were sensational.

ESPN aired a “30 for 30” on the point-shaving scandal at Boston College, which included mobster Henry Hill, whose life was later portrayed in the Martin Scorsese film “Goodfellas.”

Or, the point shaving at the City College of New York men’s basketball team in the early ‘50s.

Today? Fans are numb to these sorts of stories. A person is arrested. The games don’t stop. Neither does the gambling, and its status with the NFL, NBA, NCAA, et al.

“Money is flying everywhere, and some are getting it and some are not,” Jankovich said. “What we’ve said is, ‘It’s just fine for everyone to be making money off of this.’ That opens the door for someone to go, ‘Well, you know that guy over there, he’s making $500,000 to play this year. I’m making nothing here at this school. And this guy came to me and said I can make $100,000, and I don’t have to do that much to skew one of those little bets.’ ”

He speaks specifically of prop bets, which requires little from the player to affect. The difference of one rebound, or assist, could net someone an easy $10K.

All of these organizations, as well as the feds, have people whose job it is to monitor games to potentially red-flag anything suspicious. A bobbled rebound. An errant pass. A turnover. Plays that routinely happen, but when put against the prop bets are suspicious.

The legalized sports industry also serves as a watchdog, flagging games when betting action seems unusually high and one-sided, like on the prop bets that ended the NBA career of the Toronto Raptors’ Jontay Porter.

How do you catch them all? How can you distinguish an innocent mistake in the context of a fast game from the player who blew it intentionally?

If Boston Red Sox infielder Bill Buckner mishandles the “little roller up along first” from the New York Mets’ Mookie Wilson in Game 6 of the World Series in 2025, as opposed to 1986, it would be viewed through multiple lenses, which includes the potential he did it deliberately.

“I don’t bet, but I will say I do get things across my phone where they are showing a play, or score, and I think, ‘This is pretty strange,’ ” Jankovich said. “Definitely see some things that make you at the very least, go, ‘Hmm ... that was an interesting play right there at that time of the game.’ ”

Sports’ relationship with gambling is a part of our culture now, and as a such we are increasingly numb when we see a player who is arrested because he dropped a rebound.

A rebound that could be worth $10,000.

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