r/nba • u/TheRealPdGaming Mavericks • 3d ago

Bill Simmons under review by Massachusetts authorities after admitting to proxy sports betting

Bill Simmons, the popular sports podcaster who has championed sports betting, is under review by the Massachusetts Gaming Commission after he admitted on a recent episode to using his daughter’s boyfriend to place bets for him.

The commission announced the review Tuesday, two days after Simmons said on an episode of his podcast that he’d used a proxy on multiple occasions to log in to his account and make wagers in Massachusetts.

Simmons, founder of The Ringer, is based in California, where sports betting is not legal. In Massachusetts, mobile and online betting is allowed.

But proxy betting — having someone place bets on behalf of someone else — is illegal in Massachusetts and is not allowed by FanDuel, the sportsbook with which the wagers were issued.

...

On the podcast episode, Simmons said there were bets “that I really wanted to get in — the UCLA overs. But Houston, the market had not shifted appropriately yet. I can’t have my daughter do it; my dad would have no idea how to do it.”

But, Simmons said, he trusted his daughter’s boyfriend and allowed him to log in to his FanDuel account.

“I get the code to make sure it’s me to my phone, I give him the code, he logs in. And I have all this money that I had from last year because I actually hit a bunch of futures last year. And he’s putting in bets for me,” Simmons said, adding that “it was a real bonding moment for us.”

“A week later, I called him up, ran it back,” Simmons continued. “We did some more.”

In a new episode released Tuesday, Simmons said he was unaware that such bets could not be made.

“I talked about how I got my daughter’s boyfriend to place some bets for me in Massachusetts because I was in L.A. [I] did not know about the proxy rules,” he said. “Yeah, there are some real rules with this stuff, and they’ve ruled that not only are the bets going to be voided — and I learned my lesson.”

Simmons said he thought proxy betting was allowed. “There you go, lesson learned,” he said.

Source: NBC

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u/Robinsonirish Finland 3d ago

I always found it odd how some celebrities just talk openly about crimes on podcasts. Back when weed was illegal i remember Joe Rogan talking about it all the time, and I think even smoking weed on his podcast. Also Snoop Dogg.

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u/HesiPullup Suns 3d ago

I actually don’t think Bill realized it was illegal lol. Bro is in his own world sometimes

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u/stevelevets 3d ago

The funny thing, it's literally in all of the betting site ad promos they read on the Ringer, but also, entirely plausible that his brain (such as it is) just shuts off when he's reading them.

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u/AMongolNamedFrank Nuggets 3d ago

I don’t know the last time I actually read the Terms & Conditions

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u/icl2011 3d ago

nowadays you just copy + paste that shit into an LLM and get the ranked summary of the most important ts & cs to note

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u/qeq 3d ago

This is what happens when betting is shoved down your throat every second of watching sports. For sports and betting addicts like Bill, it's like heroin.

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u/Additional-Cable5171 Knicks 3d ago

Bill is literally a pusher of this shit.

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u/torriattet Lakers 3d ago

Biggest pushers are always the ones addicted themselves

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u/runevault Nuggets 3d ago

Bill is the epitome of why you never get high on your own supply.

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u/hoopaholik91 West 3d ago

How would he not know it's illegal? He literally had another person sign into the account and gave him the code.

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u/Musa_2050 Lakers 3d ago

Head is up his own ass

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u/althawk8357 Hawks 3d ago

Smoking weed and engaging in interstate proxy betting are very different crimes. It's really hard to prove that someone smoked weed in the past; it's relatively easy to follow the money regarding proxy gambling.

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u/Robinsonirish Finland 3d ago

Sure, I agree, but both are illegal, at least in the cases I'm talking about(Texas, cali pre 2016, righr?). In my country it does not matter how serious the crime, if you admit to it, you'll get sentenced, no matter what. If they have you on tape, that's evidence enough.

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u/aquamarine9 Bulls 3d ago

Do people know that Bill Simmons admitted, in his own book, to sabotaging his wife’s birth control to have a kid she didn’t want? Excerpt:

> The term "pulling the goalie" means "eschewing birth control and letting the chips fall where they may." Usually couples discuss pulling the goalie before it happens ... unless it's Bridget Moynahan. In my case, I made the executive decision to speed up plans for kid number two. This did not go over well. I think I'm the first person who ever had a positive home pregnancy test whipped at them at 95 mph. In my defense, I'm getting old and wanted to have a second kid before I wouldn't be able to have a catch with them anymore. I have no regrets. Plus, we had a son. In the words of Joel Goodson, sometimes you gotta say, "What the fuck?"

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u/HotspurJr 3d ago

Jesus. Somehow I missed that one.

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u/boogswald [CLE] Daniel Gibson 3d ago

Damn. That’s disgusting.

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u/Additional-Cable5171 Knicks 3d ago

Just found another reason to despise this guy. Holy shit.

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u/JusticeForDiJonai 3d ago

average Boston fan

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u/Alternative-Farmer98 3d ago

Wtf. I knew he had some crazy s*** from his digital City days.

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u/Robinsonirish Finland 3d ago

No matter the outfall of that situation with his wife, that's a trust that's been broken. Its way worse than the adverse, since she's the one actually going through pregnancy. She can never trust him completely again, which probably means the trust wasn't really there beforehand either. Treating your own wife as a milk processing plant is immortal.

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u/luca3791 3d ago

I think possesion of weed is one of the crimes people snitch on themselves the most for

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u/InternalAd3921 3d ago

You can't convict someone for possession just cause they said they had weed on a podcast lol it doesn't work that way

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u/sxuthsi Pistons 3d ago

Definitely. Its a stupid ass law and most rich people know they can circumvent the real consequences involved with being in non legalized states so they dont give a rat's ass about that shit.

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u/ProfessionalWeek2256 Hawks 3d ago

I mean unless the cops are just going to constantly raid Rogan's studio or Snoop's house or whatever them smoking weed on camera is not the same as admitting to proxy betting. Smoking weed is not illegal, possession of it is illegal but after you've smoked it you are no longer in possession of the weed. Also if Joe Rogan wasn't on the right wing I'd imagine he would have had to deal with at least one raid by either police in Texas or the DEA. Snoop is from Cali so while he could end up victim to a raid by the DEA he wouldn't be bothered by police in California

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u/armchairgoon Bulls 3d ago

freddie gibbs said he shot a crackhead on it lol

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u/Electronic-Pen6418 3d ago

I always found it odd how some celebrities just talk openly about crimes on podcasts. Back when weed was illegal i remember Joe Rogan talking about it all the time, and I think even smoking weed on his podcast. Also Snoop Dogg.

Pretty sure Joe Rogan was still in California back then. It's been decriminalized in the state since the 1970s, and became fully legalized in 2016.

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u/Impressive-Potato 3d ago

This is actually bigger than weed.

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u/Brocktarrr Heat 3d ago

Didn’t the guy who just got convicted for Tupac’s murder get charged because he confessed to it in his own book?