Malik Beasley to plead guilty in NBA betting case Dec. 9

Months after Beasley pleaded not guilty, the fight is over before it ever reached a jury. The news came straight from Shams.

Shams Charania

@ShamsCharania

Former NBA player Malik Beasley will enter a guilty plea on Dec. 9 with the Department of Justice over his role in bribery and betting scheme on his NBA play, his attorney Steve Haney tells ESPN.

Here's what he's pleading to. Federal prosecutors in Brooklyn charged Beasley on 4 counts: bribery in sporting contests, conspiracy to commit wire fraud, conspiracy to commit honest services wire fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering. He pleaded not guilty to all of them in July. A court filing on Oct. 24 said he now intends to plead guilty, and Haney put a date on it.

The case centers on the 2023-24 Bucks. Prosecutors say Beasley manipulated his stat lines in at least 4 games so gamblers could cash bets on him: Jan. 26, 2024 vs. Cleveland, Feb. 27 vs. Charlotte, March 10 vs. the Clippers and March 21 vs. Brooklyn. According to the government, he picked whether to go over or under on points and rebounds, and his co-conspirators stuck to games that weren't on national TV.

The motive is the bleakest part. The indictment says Beasley lost millions gambling during his career and borrowed money from former teammate Ed Davis to cover it. In exchange for shading his numbers, the bettors allegedly paid him off and his debt to Davis got cut down or wiped out. Davis is charged in the same case and has pleaded not guilty.

Then there's what he gave up. Beasley played 9 seasons for 6 teams and was legitimately useful as recently as 2024-25, when he signed a 1-year, $6 million deal with Detroit and was a real part of the Pistons' rotation. He hasn't played in the NBA since. A shooter who could have kept getting paid into his 30s will instead be known as the guy who sold his own box score.

This is why the sportsbooks and the league are watching. Player props are the easiest thing in sports to bet and, as this case shows, the easiest thing for an insider to rig. A guy doesn't need to throw a game, he just needs to miss a couple of jumpers or pass up a rebound in a February game nobody's watching. A guilty plea from a real rotation player confirms the scenario everyone in the gambling-integrity world has been warning about.

Next up is Dec. 9. The big questions are what the plea deal looks like, what sentence he faces and whether cooperating against the rest of the defendants is part of it. Davis and the others are still fighting the charges, and you'd assume Beasley's plea doesn't help any of them.