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

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.

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

3-10-2008 @ 5:09PM

Dead Weight said...

Cheap sensationalization. For full dramatic effect, cue piture of semi illerate dark skinned men, using stacks of cash to warm themselves over an open campfire at The National NBA Players Have More Money Than Sense Convention.

3-10-2008 @ 9:14PM

Jusrt a fan said...

wow amazing, I prefer doing my gamnbling online I found a site that gives me no hassle pay at Internet Casino

3-10-2008 @ 11:44PM

Gregory Bell said...

Dead Weight, you might want to check out hooked on phonics .Before calling someone on their intelligence, check your spelling. Stupid Bitch.

3-11-2008 @ 3:23AM

Bitch Please! said...

Gregory Bell, you might want to check your punctuation, and any other points of grammar before you call someone else stupid for the mistakes they post on a blog site.

Dumb Whore!

3-11-2008 @ 3:43AM

Michael Kline said...

I firmly believe that with celebrity comes notoriety, fame, infamy and more attention than you want or need...however... this takes the cake...

I think you should notify Congress and have a big investigation....fine everyone....stop play for this season....cancel the playoffs...make an example of everyone...keep most of the league out of the HOF....anything I forgot?

Nothing less than this will do... and with Stern's brand of justice this might all happen.

3-11-2008 @ 5:57AM

Fred C. Dobbs said...

Hey what about Pete Rose,gambling on an airplane is illegal, Pro players should not be gambling during the season and then only in a legal Casino. NBA games can have scores and points shaved pretty easy, come on gambling on the planes, put Pete Rose back on the Reds and in the Hall of Fame.......I am Fred C Dobbs and I am a casino dealer..........

3-11-2008 @ 6:44AM

ARNIE said...

In December of 1999 Arnie Wexler, a compulsive-gamblers counselor, went to the National Basketball Association office in Manhattan and met with league officials, players and union officials, concerned about players' gambling. He recalled being told, "We have a problem, and we're trying to find out how bad the problem is."

Wexler, a resident of Bradley Beach and former executive director of the New Jersey Council on Compulsive Gambling, was told to keep his calender open from January through March, to allow him to address every team in the league.

When he didn't hear from the NBA in a few weeks he called and asked, "When do we start?"

You don't, he was told. "They said, "The higher ups didn't want the media to find out.' "

The talks were canceled.

Eight years later a betting scandal involving an NBA referee has rocked the league. Not to worry, said Commissioner David Stern, who called referee Tim Donaghy "a rogue." He added, "It is my understanding that it is an isolated case."

"They call this guy "a rogue.' Stern ought to get a (bleeping) education," Wexler said. "If the NBA thinks this is an isolated case, they have their head in the sand."

If 5 percent of the population has a gambling problem, said Wexler, why should the NBA be any different?

Since players make so much money, the thinking goes, why would they risk their livelihood by fixing games?

"There's no such thing as too much money," said Wexler, who has counseled gamblers who made and lost millions. Perhaps Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods have enough money, he said, but that's just two.

Wexler was once asked to counsel a Major League baseball player, who was making $800,000 but couldn't pay his debt. When the National Football League asked his advice on whether to give a loan to Leonard Tose, owner of the Philadelphia Eagles, he warned them not to. Wexler was told the Eagles were a "cornerstone" franchise, and the loan was made.

Tose later told a congressional hearing on compulsive gambling that his losses totaled between $40 million and $50 million. He lost the Eagles, his trucking business and died living alone in a downtown Philadelphia hotel room.

Those of us old enough to remember Bill Bradley jostling with Jack Marin in the NBA playoffs remember Mendy Rudolph, the most recognizable NBA referee in the 1960s and '70s.

You could pick him out on a basketball court but not at the track. "The Number One ref in the NBA went to the track in disguise. I remember. I was gambling those days," Wexler said.

Rudolph died of a heart attack in 1979. He was 52. In a 1992 interview with the New York Times, his widow, Susan Rudolph, told how her husband received a call from a gambler in Las Vegas, who offered Rudolph money to shave points.

Susan Rudolph recalled her husband saying: "It would be the answer to all our problems. (The gambler) made it sound so easy. All I would have to do is look away maybe one time a game. Maybe twice."

From his jobs as a referee and in sales Rudolph was making $100,000 in 1973. (The equivalent of about $450,000 today). Still, according to the Times, he had to cash in his $60,000 pension fund to pay gambling debts, and he still owed $100,000.

When he died, Lawrence O'Brien, then the NBA commissioner, said of Rudolph, "Mendy's contributions to the integrity of pro basketball are legendary."

You wonder if O'Brien knew about the calls Rudolph got from Las Vegas.

Now, if Tom Donaghy really is an "isolated case," David Stern and his NBA lead a charmed life.

Rick Malwitz's column appears Sundays and Thursdays.

3-11-2008 @ 3:41PM

Jessie Jacksons Mouth said...

why why why

3-11-2008 @ 3:44PM

If this were a couple of the honky players like Dirk and Kyle Korver playing for a Snickers bar we would have heard nothing of it. This is just another sign of the white me trying to hold us down. Don't let me down HYMIETOWN!

3-12-2008 @ 5:04AM

Al Sharptons Big toe said...

Jessie why do you always have to get involved and try to make a negative out of a positive. Snickers are my favorite white man food and you have to make me think about it and please Jessie you know how New Yorkers feel about you useing that word. Please just call it H-TOWN.

3-13-2008 @ 9:01AM

Scott said...

Just like always find the ONE example and blow it out of proportion so you have something to write about. You can't even get the headline right. Anderson said he saw someone lose $30,000. He did not say the limit on loses was $30k, so the headline should read "NBA Players Have Lost up to $30K an Hour During in Flight Gambling" They could always lose more. But anyway - who cares? They are all well off and can afford to lose the money. Plus they are ADULTS and you are not their MOMMY!! Do you have a follow up story to let us know about all of the NBA players who gamble and their winnings? Someone does win the money, correct? Tell us about that.

3-13-2008 @ 9:09AM

Do people like this Bret Edwards actually get paid to write such "riveting" garbage ALL of the time? If anyone out there is hiring a writer for such work, just let me know. It shouldn't be hard. I will just find the most unimportant thing to latch onto, make sure I add enough "tsk,tsk...that is bad" and my own condemning judgment while ignoring the facts I do not like because they ruin my story and then I will call myself a "journalist" or a "blogger". So, please send those job offers my way. Thanks!

3-13-2008 @ 9:26AM

Hey, Arnie.
It is sad that some people have destructive addictions/behaviors, but just because some people do does not mean your treat the other 95% like children. Even making gambling 100% illegal is not going to matter to the 5% you reference - just as drugs being illegal does not stop their influence on our society. This is not about gambling for the 5% you reference - it is about issues they have that they choose gambling as an outlet for. What if they decided to take up knitting and spent ALL of their money knitting a million pot holders? Or decided to collect toy cars and followed their addicitive urges to buy a 100,000 toy cars? Would we outlaw yarn and toy cars? The end result is they still end up broke and broken down used up people because of THEIR addictive behaviors/tendancies. All you can do is offer help for them. They have to want the help. You can not force it on them. And making everything illegal just to protect a small % of people totally(like we always do for some dumb reason) ignores the real mental issues that lead to the addiction issues in the first place. Gambling did not give them those tendancies - they already had them and just chose gambling as their outlet. They could just as easily chosen any of a number of other "addictive" things to release those addictive tendancies. SO unless we outlaw everything, maybe we better focus more on the REAL problem of WHY people choose such destructive behaviors to destroy themselves.