Bickerstaff believes sports gambling has “crossed the line”
Bickerstaff said on Wednesday that he’s been harassed by gamblers on multiple instances.
On Wednesday, Cleveland Cavaliers head coach J.B. Bickerstaff said that, on multiple occasions, he has received “crazy messages” from sports betters.
“I personally have had my own instances with sports gamblers where they got my telephone number and were sending me crazy messages about where I live and my kids and all that stuff,” Bickerstaff said. “It’s a dangerous game. A fine line that we’re walking for sure.”
Bickerstaff’s comments come a day after Indiana Pacers guard Tyrese Haliburton said after practice that he’s felt the effects of sports gambling and has been talking through it with his sports psychologist recently.
“To half the world, I’m just helping them make money on DraftKings or whatever. I’m a prop,” Haliburton said to James Boyd of The Athletic, “I think all that stuff, it can be funny sometimes when someone is like ‘I lost a thousand dollars now.’ I don’t give a f---.”
As a league, the NBA has a business relationship with FanDuel and offers betting in its app. The Cavs have their own partnership with Ceasar’s Sportsbook and an in-arena sportsbook. Several other teams have similar deals with different sports betting companies. ESPN, a prominent broadcast partner, operates a betting service and features various gambling information on its broadcasts.
Bickerstaff said that the rise of betting has made his job more difficult.
“It brings added pressure,” Bickerstaff said. “It brings a distraction to the game that can be difficult for players, coaches, referees, everybody that’s involved in that. I think we really have to be careful with how close we let it get to the game and the security of the people who are involved in it because it does carry a weight.”
Miami Heat head coach Eric Spoelstra has also seen instances of gamblers going a step too far.
“We had an incident behind our bench last year with Victor Oladipo where someone was screaming,” Spoelstra said. “Someone had to take [the fan] away. The game was already over and evidently, [Oladipo] didn’t shoot an open three at the end of the game. The game was already decided and this fan was totally beside himself and it was a gambler. He had money on whatever the score was.”
“There’s just a lot of unintended consequences with that from a security standpoint that I’m not sure everybody totally understood when it became allowed.”
There’s also the danger that gambling can have on the people who don’t participate in moderation.
“A lot of times, people are gambling with this money that pays their light bill and pays their rent,” Bickerstaff said. “And then the emotions come from that. I do think we’re walking a very fine line and we have to be extremely careful in protecting everybody who’s involved.”
“I do think it’s somewhat contradictory,” Spoelstra said. “I think it treads on a weird line.”
Bickerstaff went a step further than Spoelstra.
“There’s no doubt about it, that it’s crossed the line,” Bickerstaff said. “The amount of times where I’m standing up there and we have a 10-point lead and the spread is 11 and people are yelling at me to leave the guys in so that we can cover the spread. It’s ridiculous.”
“I understand the business of it. It is something that I believe has gone too far.”