Apparently not even God’s house is safe from angry parlay bettors.
Houston Rockets star Fred VanVleet appeared this week on the “Club 520 Podcast.” During the episode, VanVleet shared a wild story about being confronted by a bettor … while he was at a church service.
“The Internet don’t bother me,” said VanVleet. “It’s the in-person one you got to be careful for. I had somebody run down on me in church … ‘N—a you f–ked up my parlay.’ In church. I said, ‘Damn.’ [It was for] $3,000 … I couldn’t believe it. But I mean it’s real out here.”
The 31-year-old VanVleet is in his third year as a member of the Rockets. Prior to that, he was an NBA champion in 2019 as well as an All-Star in 2022 with the Toronto Raptors.
Unfortunately, VanVleet is out for the entire 2025-26 NBA season after suffering a torn ACL during an offseason workout in late September. Thus, the story that he told about the angry bettor in church was obviously from a previous season.
With the entire sports world, particularly the NBA, having embraced legalized betting with open arms, these kinds of confrontations have unfortunately become all too common. A few months ago, we saw an actual video of Golden State Warriors star Jimmy Butler getting accosted on the street by an angry gambler.
