'Basketball Wives' Star Owns up to Gambling Addiction

As Basketball Wives star Brittish Williams prepares to turn herself into federal prison, she is opening up about what led her to participate in fraud crimes. The VH1 star will serve four years as part of a plea agreement stemming from a 2021 indictment via The United States Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Missouri on federal bank fraud. According to prosecutors, Williams is guilty of misusing a social security number, bank fraud, making false statements to the IRS, wire fraud, and aggravated identity theft. Her crimes date back to at least 2017. Radar Online reported that prosecutors allege Williams deposited checks, "without the knowledge and authority of the actual checking account holders" and withdrew the money before the "deposited checks were returned to the issuing banks for insufficient funds." She was also involved in a 2021 accident where she told police she had no injuries but reportedly received a settlement. Per prosecutors in the social security and bank fraud case, a claim was submitted to her insurance company for $16,000. But she says her personal gambling problem caused her to spiral, and she insinuates she was unaware that she was committing a crime. 

While speaking to executive producer Carlos King for an upcoming episode of his Reality With the King podcast, Williams says she had a bad gambling addiction. "No one even knows this besides my family and friends: I used to have a very, very bad gambling problem, horrible," she said. "Like when you think about people … being on drugs or people … being alcoholics, I don't think there is anything worse than gambling."

She recalls losing $50,000 over one Christmas, which saddened her as she helped financially provide for her family. Williams says her troubles hit its peak in 2016. Her then-fiance, international Basketball player Lorenzo Gordon, stopped working in 2017. She says her gambling led to them nearly losing their home. Williams admits to spending Gordon's money and hers with the idea that she could quickly earn it back.

"It was really an addiction that I literally had to wean myself from. And on top of having my lifestyle and, you know, just everything that I was used to doing and having this addiction was horrible," she told King.

After Willaims' father died in 2017, she inherited insurance money and sought to invest it. She claims her intention was to build her credit back up. She sought help from a financial advisor, who sold her a credit privacy number (CPN). The nine-digit number — formatted just like a Social Security number (SSN) — is often used by scam artists to mislead consumers into thinking it can replace one's SSN. It's illegal, which Willaims insinuates she didn't know. 

"When people see this misuse of a social security number, they think I went and stole people's social security numbers or something. That wasn't the case," she explained. "I bought a CPN from a credit lady and I don't know if it was somebody's actual social security number or if it was something they created. I don't know but that's where that came from." the episode airs on Tuesday, Dec. 12 at 9 AM EST.