The T1 League has fined the Taiwan Beer Leopards NT$350,000 (US$10,794) for contravening the league’s betting rules, the league said on Saturday, after a former player last week admitted to betting on games.
Lo Chen-feng, who was fired by the Leopards on Tuesday last week after admitting to betting on games in the semi-professional Super Basketball League (SBL) last year while he was with the Leopards.
Although the offense involved betting on another league’s games, the T1 League said it had “zero tolerance” for gambling, drug use or fraud, and fined the Leopards for failing to prevent the betting and the negative attention brought to the league by Lo’s actions.
Photo: Wang Yi-sung, Taipei Times
The T1 League said it banned Lo indefinitely from the league.
Lo was selected by the Leopards in the first round of the 2021 draft and averaged 10 points, 4.4 rebounds and 1.1 assists per game in 12 games played in his rookie season.
That performance led the Leopards to sign him to a four-year, NT$12 million contract, making him the highest-paid domestic player on the team.
Lo’s betting came to light a week after the Chinese-language Mirror Media reported on his alleged involvement in match-fixing with SBL player Wu Chi-ying, while Wu was with the Yulon Luxgen Dinos in the 2022-2023 season.
Wu was not re-signed by the Dinos and was playing for Taiwan Beer’s SBL team when the Mirror Media report was published.
Screenshots leaked to local media allegedly showed Wu and a T1 League player referred to as “L,” identified by Mirror Media as Lo, discussing match-fixing.
The Leopards in a statement on Tuesday last week said that Lo admitted his actions to the franchise four days after all Leopards employees were asked to sign an affidavit that anyone found to have breached their gambling rules would be dismissed immediately.
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