{"id":601286,"date":"2026-02-13T18:20:17","date_gmt":"2026-02-13T18:20:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/601286\/"},"modified":"2026-02-13T18:20:17","modified_gmt":"2026-02-13T18:20:17","slug":"rockets-fred-vanvleet-was-accosted-by-a-jilted-bettor-in-church","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/601286\/","title":{"rendered":"Rockets’ Fred VanVleet was accosted by a jilted bettor in church"},"content":{"rendered":"

Unfortunately, stories of deranged sports bettors accosting professional athletes over losing bets are becoming all too common. Seemingly every week, we get a story about a tennis player getting harassed in their DMs<\/a>, or gamblers lobbing threats at professional athletes for missing an easy shot<\/a> or making a mistake. <\/p>\n

Most of these instances are confined to social media, but it turns out that no place is off-limits for these unhinged bettors. Not even church. <\/p>\n

Fred VanVleet, who won an NBA Championship in 2019 with the Toronto Raptors and is a former All-Star, told a story on the \u201cClub 520 Podcast<\/a>\u201d about the time he was confronted by an ornery bettor at a church service.<\/p>\n

The subject was broached when VanVleet was asked by one of the hosts if any fans ever came after him for messing up their parlays.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe internet don\u2019t bother me,\u201d VanVleet explained through a sigh to co-hosts Jeff Teague, DJ Wells, and Bishop B. Hen. \u201cIt\u2019s the in-person one you gotta be careful for.\u201d<\/p>\n

The conversation took a sharp right turn into the Lord\u2019s House, leaving the hosts stunned.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had somebody run down on me in church,\u201d VanVleet continued. \u201cChurch!\u2026I said, \u2018Damn!\u201d<\/p>\n

\"FredFred VanVleet of the Houston Rockets will miss the entire 2025-26 season with an ACL injury. NBAE via Getty Images<\/p>\n

VanVleet, who is set to miss the entire 2025-26 season due to a torn ACL, explained that the unrepentant gambler, whom he described as a \u201cyoung\u2019n,\u201d blamed him for a losing parlay that would have paid out $3,000.<\/p>\n

VanVleet never explained when the impious kerfuffle took place, but given his injury, it couldn\u2019t have been any time this season.<\/p>\n

Although VanVleet and the hosts of the podcasts were able to laugh through the conversation and make some jokes about the unholy situation, it underscored an unfortunate, but all-too-common ripple effect of the legalization and mainstream embrace of sports betting in an age where athletes are easily reachable, and thus harrassable, thanks to social media.<\/p>\n

That said, you\u2019d think that, of all places, a house of worship would be out-of-bounds for this kind of unfortunate encounter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Unfortunately, stories of deranged sports bettors accosting professional athletes over losing bets are becoming all too common. Seemingly…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":601287,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3794],"tags":[7,212,866,292,194,4066,6,214,211,66,215,2086,6839],"class_list":{"0":"post-601286","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-houston-rockets","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-betting","10":"tag-fred-vanvleet","11":"tag-houston","12":"tag-houston-rockets","13":"tag-houstonrockets","14":"tag-nba","15":"tag-nba-betting","16":"tag-rockets","17":"tag-sports","18":"tag-sports-betting","19":"tag-sports-entertainment","20":"tag-sports-fans"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116064710743282235","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/601286","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=601286"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/601286\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/601287"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=601286"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=601286"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=601286"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}