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SportsTranscript
00:00Matthew Waters is with us, where generally when we're talking about stories regarding
00:04sports betting and some illicit nature of sports betting, we use the word allegedly,
00:09we no longer have to do that. The NBA has completed their investigation into one of
00:12their players betting against himself, which apparently did happen. Matthew Waters is with us,
00:18and we've been careful, you know, diving around the story. Tiptoeing, I think,
00:21is probably the best way to put it, but this is just really hard to fathom for me,
00:27Matthew, that a player could be this stupid. You know, I don't know any other way to put it.
00:30Like, you're playing the life, your dreams, you're playing in the NBA. It's like I cannot
00:37even imagine what kind of advice this guy must have been getting to not only bet against himself
00:43and props, but to also give this information out. I don't know what's stupider, to do that
00:48or to think you're not going to get caught doing that. I mean, you tell me.
00:52Yeah, I'm not sure we know which act is dumber just yet, Craig. It was for $22,000 he threw his
01:00career away. That was his net winnings. He was paid out around $76,000 on around $55,000, $54,000
01:08in bets. $22,000 he threw his NBA career away for. And look, the NBA simply did not have a choice
01:18have a choice in this. Porter had to be made an example of. And look, I guess you can say the NBA
01:27got lucky that it wasn't a bigger name guy getting caught for the first time and doing something like
01:32this where you got to set that example. But man, yeah, it's just so many mistakes made. And it's
01:41hard for at least me to reconcile which exactly is worse. Was it worse that he was giving out
01:47the information when he knew he wasn't going to be playing? Was it worse that he faded the
01:53Ractors in that one game? He didn't play in that game. But still, I mean, it's all bad. It's all
01:59a real bad look, right? But it's a great look for regulated gambling because it did what it's
02:06supposed to do. It caught it. It tracked it. And now he's out of the league. And for now,
02:12the bad guy is gone, the NBA can say. And everything is full of integrity and everything
02:18will be fine moving forward from here. You know, and that really just means, you know,
02:25we'll wait until we hear about the next time this happens. Because, Greg, these leagues,
02:30they are making it abundantly clear to these players about what you can
02:34and cannot do when it comes to gambling. And so you're right. It's hard to categorize this as
02:41anything other than just stupid mistakes because he knew. He knew. Every professional player
02:49knows these gambling rules. They make it very, very clear. And so it's a shame. It's a shame
02:56that he had to throw that career away. It's a shame that there's a black cloud cast against
03:02the NBA for a little bit here. But regulated gambling worked the way it's supposed to.
03:09Got it all tidied up and figured out. And we'll move on from here. And we just have to hope that
03:16the next time this happens, again, it could be in the regulated industry and we can have all
03:20of those checks and balances work the way they're supposed to.