Ballers Take Betting to Next Level

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AOL
Posted: 2008-03-13 00:47:37
Filed Under: NBA
In Monday's NBA FanHouse, Brett Edwards blogs about the high stakes card games that take place during team flights. Players losing as much as $30,000 in one hour of gambling is reportedly not uncommon, yet the betting, which takes place on private flights between NBA cities, goes unmonitored by the teams and the league.

While this might sound like a shocking amount of money to be lost in a card game between friends, pricey gambling amongst teammates has long been a part of team culture in the NBA. From legendary card sharks to trick-shot hustlers, check out a photo gallery that details pro basketball's connections to, and obsessions with, the controversial sport-within-a-sport of gambling.

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NBA Players Can Lose '$30,000 an Hour' During Airplane Card Games

Posted Mar 10th 2008 3:09PM by Brett Edwards
Filed under: NBA Gambling, NBA Gossip

Great read from Ira Winderman discussing the high stakes card games that go on throughout the league -- at 35,000 feet. Playing poker during flights between cities is a ritual as common as pre-game warmups for players on all 30 of the league's teams, and if it's not monitored by the team's authority figures, it's one that can get completely out of control.


Veteran guard Derek Anderson gives us an idea of how crazy things can get, and says he's seen players lose a ton of money in a very short amount of time.

I've heard guys who have lost $30,000 on an hour plane trip," Charlotte guard Derek Anderson, the former Heat reserve, says. "It's amazing - $30,000 in an hour."

"You leave Chicago, you have $30,000. You arrive in Detroit, you don't."
That was probably the longest one-hour flight in history for the poor sap who dropped $30K on a card game. Now anytime we hear outrageous stories about the gambling habits of athletes, it's important to keep perspective. According to the article, the average NBA player gets a game check of $66K, so while $30K seems like a ton of money to us common folk, it's not like these guys will be homeless or starving after a loss like that.


While the league has refused to adopt a policy on these types of card games, some teams have felt the need to put their own rules in place. When Alvin Gentry was with Detroit, he first tried limiting things to "cash only," before eventually putting a stop to it altogether. As he put it, the IOUs are where the trouble comes in. A legendary example of which is the story of Tyrone Hill and Charles Oakley, which was so awesome that I feel it must be recounted here.



The story goes like this. Hill lost an obscene amount of money -- $54,000 -- to Oakley in a summertime dice game before the 2000-01 season. Hill was slow to pay off his debt, which resulted in Oakley getting physical with him whenever he had the opportunity. First Oak slapped Hill before a preseason game. Then, several months later with the debt still not paid, Oakley threw a basketball at Hill's head during a morning shootaround, resulting in a $10,000 fine and a one game suspension from the league.


Finally, with Hill no doubt fearing for his life at this point, he famously paid off his debt to Oakley before they faced each other in Game 5 of their teams' playoff series. So while this story came from an offseason gambling session and didn't happen on a team-chartered flight, it's a good example of why teams might want to monitor these types of card games. Even though these guys have millions to play with, it seems that when large gambling debts are involved, things can very quickly start to spill over onto the basketball court.

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http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/05/...rts/gamble.php

http://sports.aol.com/fanhouse/2008/...ambling-debts/

http://sports.aol.com/fanhouse/categ...ay-that-money/

http://sports.aol.com/fanhouse/2008/...he-super-bowl/

http://sports.aol.com/fanhouse/categ...with-one-hand/

http://sports.aol.com/fanhouse/2008/...with-lincolns/

http://sports.aol.com/fanhouse/categ...ttery-tickets/