It’s not just basketball that some of the top players in the game love. Many NBA stars also spend time gambling and regularly make their way to casinos. Let’s look at some of the top players who also love to gamble.

Michael Jordan

The legendary NBA star is often seen gambling at casinos in Atlantic City. He’s considered by a lot of experts to be the best player ever seen in the NBA. Heaven help the casinos if he repeats that level of performance when he’s in Atlantic City. One thing is for sure and that’s the fact that Jordan is a highly competitive player.

Jordan isn’t just a casino fan, but he loves sports betting too. He loves to place big money bets and not just on big sporting events. A friend of his revealed that a golf match had seen him win a $1m bet against Jordan. Perhaps he’s not quite as talented at golf as he is at scoring points on a basketball court.

He had better luck in a shooting competition with his Washington teammate Richard Hamilton. Bets were made on the competition and this time Jordan was the winner. Hamilton had to go to the bank to make an urgent withdrawal to pay off his gambling debt. Other members of the Washington team weren’t too happy as they had to wait nearly 90 minutes in a bus before the debt was settled. We don’t know quite how much Jordan won but his beaten opponent admitted that they were “betting a large amount per shot.”

Charles Barkley

Las Vegas is a popular destination for this NBA player. He’s had plenty of success playing basketball but not quite so much when having a gamble. In 2006, Barkley announced that his visits to casinos had resulted in some big losses being incurred. He admitted to having lost $10m. It was widely reported that Barkley was a fan of playing roulette online as well as string of other popular table games.

Barkley had better luck in 2007 when he told reporters how he’d won $700,000 betting on the Indianapolis Colts to win Super Bowl XLI.

He’s had a few problems over the years when it comes to gambling. The Wynn Casino in Las Vegas ended up taking the NBA star to a very different court, a legal one in fact. They had no option after Barkley had failed to honour bets to the value of nearly $400,000.

Speaking about his gambling, Barkley admitted it’d be better if he just played $1,000 a hand not $20,000. But he said that “I’ve told all of the people in my life that first and foremost it’s my money.”

JR Smith

JR Smith found himself in a difficult situation when his multi-million-dollar mansion was subject to an unwanted visit by some thieves. The police investigated the break-in and were puzzled to discover that one of the stolen items was a suitcase.

It wasn’t any normal suitcase but one that had $15,000 of cash in it. The police asked the inevitable question as to why the suitcase contained so much money. Smith replied that it was his “gambling money.”