Michael Jordan Was Asked By NBA If He Was Gambling On Bulls Games After They Found Out He Had $1.2 Million Gambling Debt: ‘I Never Bet On Games, I Only Bet On Myself’

The NBA asked Michael Jordan if he was gambling on Chicago Bulls games after they found out he had a $1.2 million gambling debt.

During the 1993 playoffs, Richard Esquinas — a one-time general manager of the San Diego Sports Arena — wrote in his book that Jordan owed him more than $1.2 million in gambling debt. 

“Richard Esquinas, we met from a third party,” Jordan said in The Last Dance doc. “I’m actually playing golf with people all the time now. And if they wanna gamble, we gamble. The character of those individuals, I find out later what kind of people I was playing with, I learned that lesson. But the act of gambling, I didn’t do anything wrong. … I never bet on games. I only bet on myself and that was golf. Do I like to play blackjack? Yeah, I like playing blackjack. There’s no laws with that. And the league did call me and they asked questions about it and I told them exactly what was happening.”

Jordan’s gambling addiction was a huge topic in the 1993 playoffs.

On top of the Esquinas drama, Jordan took a limo from New York to Atlanta City to gamble with his dad the night before the Bulls lost Game 2 of the 1993 Eastern Conference Finals against the New York Knicks. 

The New York Times broke the story and Jordan was heavily attacked. 

“My father said let’s get away from New York City,” Jordan said in The Last Dance doc. “Let’s you and I go to Atlantic City. We got a limo, we went and gambled for a couple of hours, we came back. Everybody went totally ballistic. Hey, he was in a casino last night. I wasn’t late. We got home by 12:30, one o’clock.”

After the Bulls won the 1993 NBA Finals against the Phoenix Suns, Jordan’s father was tragically murdered. Some media members speculated that Jordan’s dad was killed because of his son’s gambling debt, which was not true. 

Jordan retired from the NBA in 1993. He played baseball before returning to basketball near the end of the 1994-95 season. 

In two stints with the Bulls, Jordan averaged 31.5 points, 6.3 rebounds, 5.4 assists, 2.5 steals and 0.9 blocks. He won five MVPs, 10 scoring titles, three steals titles, one Defensive Player of the Year Award, a Rookie of the Year Award, six championships and six Finals MVPs. 

For its six championships, Chicago beat the Los Angeles Lakers, Portland Trail Blazers, Suns, Seattle SuperSonics and Utah Jazz (twice).

The Bulls three-peated twice and went undefeated in the NBA Finals in the Jordan era.