The viral $10K Victor Wembanyama DPOY bet is incredibly fake but the timing is still weird

OK, let’s get this part out of the way first: The viral $10,000 bet allegedly placed on Victor Wembanyama to win Defensive Player of the Year an hour before ESPN’s Shams Charania reported the San Antonio Spurs star would miss the remainder of the season is fake.

Despite @JerseyMike732 posting a screenshot of a purported Caesars Sportsbook betslip, the book confirmed to For The Win it does not have any record of a $10,000 bet being placed Thursday on any DPOY market, let alone Wemby.

Fake betslips are all over social media. This is nothing new. Credit to @JerseyMike732 for getting a ton of interactions on social media with his ploy — even if the “7 p.m.” timestamp on a bet allegedly placed before 1 p.m. ET was a bit of a giveaway.

For those asking for the slip https://t.co/CdiLQRVTJ3 pic.twitter.com/XaozOB5PQv

— Jersey Mike (@JerseyMike732) February 20, 2025

That’s not really the interesting part here. What sticks out is how sketchy this all feels even on the surface.

Whether this was just a ploy to go viral (it did) or intended to move the markets (it did not), it’s hard to escape the notion someone had inside information on Wemby’s health and connected it to betting.

Both Caesars and BetMGM said there were no notable wagers placed Thursday on DPOY markets before the Wembanyama news was announced, so it appears a larger crisis was avoided. This is also why groups like U.S. Integrity are constantly monitoring betting activity across the country, but that doesn’t make the optics any better.

The concern is that someone could be knowingly enticing players to place a bet destined to fail to boost odds elsewhere on the board. Make no mistake, getting information ahead of the oddsmakers is part of the game. Misleading other bettors to increase profits off that information is where this starts getting real icky (again, there is no evidence that’s what happened with the Wembanyama tweet).

At a time when the NBA is still getting to the bottom of the Jontay Porter scandal, and following the news of a gambling investigation into Terry Rozier, posts like the one from @JerseyMike732 will, rightfully, remain a reason to pause.

There’s still a chance this is all just a wild coincidence. We’ve reached out to @JerseyMike732 for comment, though the account appears to be a burner. It only began tweeting in December 2024 and has a minimal following/follower list.

We’ll update this post if and when we learn more.