Malik Beasley accused of manipulating prop bets on himself

[Dan Druff]

This is very similar to the Jontay Porter situation, except worse because Beasley is a more high profile player.

Beasley is accused of cooperating with unnamed third parties to manipulate lines on his stats. This differs from Porter, who simply feigned injury mid-game and sat out, allowing under props to win.

In Beasley's case, an +120 under 2.5 rebound prop on January 31, 2024 was bet heavily until the line moved to -250. Beasley then achieved 6 rebounds, making that bet lose. There is some belief that this was a form of line manipulation, where more money was placed on the +200-ish side at books everywhere else, with the assurance from Beasley that he'd try very hard to get at least 3 rebounds.

This was just one game cited at the time during Beasley's time with the Bucks.

Beasley was on the verge of signing a $42m contract with the Pistons, which has now been put on hold.

https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/...gambling-probe

https://sports.yahoo.com/article/nba...214526260.html


The journalist who broke the story (not the writer, but the investigator) was David Purdum. He was the one who covered on ESPN my situation regarding the BetMGM bank thefts in 2022, and that story was the major turning point which forced the companies to act. Props to him again.

[Sloppy Joe]

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[Dan Druff]

That's really interesting.

This might go back several years.

Could just be stat padding. This would be more significant if he were on the team leading and changed the betting outcome that way, as etiquette says you hold the ball. In this case, his team was down 9 with a few seconds left, so maybe he just wanted 2 more points on his stat line.

Still needs to be examined, and perhaps already has been.

[Jayjami]

That's really interesting.

This might go back several years.

Could just be stat padding. This would be more significant if he were on the team leading and changed the betting outcome that way, as etiquette says you hold the ball. In this case, his team was down 9 with a few seconds left, so maybe he just wanted 2 more points on his stat line.

Still needs to be examined, and perhaps already has been.

Remember, the prosecution has to prove intent beyond a reasonable doubt. When there are multiple possible motivations for a defendant’s actions, you have to proffer alternative evidence in that regard to convince most jurors.

[VaughnP]

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https://twitter.com/itsjwills/status/1939481629057003539

[Dan Druff]

That's really interesting.

This might go back several years.

Could just be stat padding. This would be more significant if he were on the team leading and changed the betting outcome that way, as etiquette says you hold the ball. In this case, his team was down 9 with a few seconds left, so maybe he just wanted 2 more points on his stat line.

Still needs to be examined, and perhaps already has been.

Remember, the prosecution has to prove intent beyond a reasonable doubt. When there are multiple possible motivations for a defendant’s actions, you have to proffer alternative evidence in that regard to convince most jurors.

I will say that the feds are rarely wrong in these spots. They might have a lot of evidence like text messages or whatever, and just not revealing it yet.

[VaughnP]

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The other clip with Giannis is a joke, but is this true? Is the close up a splice from some other clip?

[Sloppy Joe]

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The other clip with Giannis is a joke, but is this true? Is the close up a splice from some other clip?

Not sure tbh.

Fucking stupid for guys like Beasley and Terry Rozier (cleared but still) to fuck around with this stuff when they clear 10+ million a year.

Guys like Jontay Porter, at least it makes monetary sense.

Think all the DraftKings/Fanduel stuff is going to have real consequences for major league sports in the coming years.

[Dan Druff]

My preliminary guess is that he felt this was going to be hard to detect, because he was pushing to make overs, not unders (which of course are easy to control). Also, they probably guaranteed him that the noticeably heavy action was going to be on the other side (for purposes of line manipulation), and their bets on the overs will be spread around different books so it won't be caught.

It's very notable that they're citing that 1/31/24 game where the o/u was 2.5 rebounds, the heavy action came on the under (moving it from +120 to -250), and he got 6.

The idiot was probably convinced there was no way they'd ever get caught, and he'd always have plausible deniability by just claiming he plays hard at all times.

The flaw in all of this is that prop action just isn't very heavy on any non-superstar player. Someone like Beasley is always going to raise eyebrows when there's big bets placed on his performance, especially if it's more than a one time fluke.