Malik Beasley in Plea Talks Over NBA Prop-Betting Scheme Charges

Former NBA guard Malik Beasley is negotiating a plea agreement with federal prosecutors over charges that he fixed his own statistical performance in at least four 2024 games while playing for the Milwaukee Bucks, his attorney Steve Haney confirmed on October 24, 2026. A court docket notice indicates Beasley intends to plead guilty, though no agreement has been signed and no plea is yet in the record.

Beasley is one of six people named in an indictment unsealed over the summer, all facing charges of wire fraud conspiracy, bribery in sporting contests, honest services wire fraud conspiracy, and money laundering conspiracy; he had pleaded not guilty in New York federal court in July 2026, and co-defendant sports agent Paolo Zamorano has also pleaded not guilty. Prosecutors allege Beasley under- or overperformed against sportsbooks' player-prop expectations - for individual scoring and rebounding totals, not game outcomes - in games against Cleveland (January 26), Charlotte (February 27), the Clippers (March 10), and Brooklyn (March 21), and that bettors in on the scheme had his gambling debts to former NBA player Ed Davis, alleged to have acted as a gatekeeper, reduced or erased as payment. Co-defendants are accused of steering the bets toward games that weren't nationally televised.

A federal judge has referred the case to a magistrate in Brooklyn, who will schedule a hearing for Beasley to formally enter a plea once an agreement is reached. The case sits inside a much larger federal gambling probe that has produced more than three dozen arrests; former NBA player Damon Jones was the first defendant in the broader sweep to plead guilty, back in April.

The case is a reminder that the same narrow, single-stat prop bets drawing regulatory attention elsewhere in this roundup - Pennsylvania's new bill would ban them outright, and the CFTC has been scrutinizing similar "micro" contracts on prediction markets - create real incentives to manipulate outcomes, in a way a straightforward bet on who wins a game doesn't.