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The rumor in the league was that Malik Beasley was broke. It was December 2023, and despite being one of the best three-point shooters in the NBA, the 27-year-old guard had taken an 83 percent pay cut to join the Milwaukee Bucks that season on a $2 million contract, the lowest salary teams are allowed to pay league veterans. The vet minimum was a blow to Beasley — to his reputation and bottom line.

Despite making $15.5 million the season before, Beasley was allegedly racking up millions in debts: to his agent, to a company that offers bridge loans to athletes, even to his barber (whom he eventually did pay back). On December 29, the night he scored 15 points in a win over Cleveland, he told former pro Ed Davis he didn’t even have the cash to pay him a small debt. “Trying to find like 2K,” he texted Davis. “I’ll do my best to pay in full.”

Davis, a journeyman forward who bounced from the league the year before, had several loans out to Beasley. And he had an idea of how to recoup. He asked Beasley if he was on Snapchat, the app that automatically deletes messages. “Better to talk on there,” he texted. “We can make some good money.” On January 26, they debuted their plan. Beasley told Davis he would get fewer than four rebounds so that Davis could get a guaranteed win on the sports-gambling apps DraftKings and FanDuel. Davis then put the word out to people in his orbit — a former agent, a bettor he knew in the Las Vegas area, a hanger-on of the star forward Jimmy Butler — that the under on Beasley rebounds was a lock. He grabbed three rebounds, and their scheme netted close to $20,000.

In February, they began trying multi-leg bets called parlays: Under on points, over on rebounds, for a $52,000 win. There were some close calls. In a March game against the Los Angeles Clippers, Beasley had to hustle in the final seconds to chase down his fourth rebound so their bets would pay out. Ernesto Plascencia, one of Davis’s bettors, was watching the game and texted others involved: “What’s funny is after he got it he had a big sigh of relief.”

Two days later, Plascencia had an issue with one of the bettors, Rob Gorodetsky. “Rob you making insane amount stop it,” Plascenia texted. Gorodetsky was gambling five-figure sums on Beasley’s inside info, so much that Plascencia told him he’d “move[d] the lines every time.” His bets were so big they were changing the odds offered by the sportsbook — a good way to get flagged for suspicious activity, which is what happened. A little over a year later, Beasley was unofficially locked out of the league as FBI agents investigated the bets from Gorodetsky and others dating back to January 2024.

In early July, federal prosecutors in New York laid out what they believe happened in an indictment charging Beasley, Davis,........

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