Cedric the Entertainer Quit Gambling After One Round of Golf With Michael Jordan

Cedric the Entertainer may have been one of the Original Kings of Comedy, but Michael Jordan is the King of the Links.

His Airness’ affection for high-stakes gambling has been a point of conversation over his career since before his first retirement from professional basketball. In fact, when Jordan took a gap year from playing in the NBA to try his luck at professional baseball in the mid-1990s, the shocking career turn spawned a conspiracy theory that continues to convert believers to this day, in which NBA commissioner David Stern supposedly sneak-suspended the reigning NBA Finals MVP from the league for betting on games. 

As anyone who watched the The Last Dance can attest, Jordan gambles on cards, on horses, on coin-tosses and, of course, on the back nine. Furthermore, considering how much his sneaker line still stuffs his pockets, when you play against the GOAT, you’re putting for some serious dough.

On last night’s episode of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Cedric the Entertainer explained how a golf outing with MJ left him with a hefty debt and caused him to swear off gambling for good. Or as Cedric lamented of his losses, “I don’t sell tennis shoes.”

“That kind of took me from betting altogether,” said Cedric of the golf outing where Air Jordan’s short game knocked the comic’s socks off. “Mike likes to play golf, and then he bets throughout the game and it gets pretty serious. It got out of my pay range very quickly,” Cedric recalled of the time he watched his Barbershop residuals slip away like they were the Utah Jazz’ championship aspirations.

Of Jordan’s famously A-list foursomes on the golf course, Cedric said, “When you play with you Mike, it’s always like him and (Derek) Jeter and other baseball players and athletes,” then listing another notoriously risk-friendly basketball star, “The time I played, (Charles) Barkley was with us, and they were playing like ten thousand a hole, $10,000 a hole.” 

Like most sane human beings who don’t have busts in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, those stakes scared Cedric stiff.

“(Jordan) was like, ‘You gotta play, Ced! You gotta play!’ And I was like, ‘I don’t have it, Mike,’” Cedric continued, telling Jordan, “I would have to open a second line of credit just to play golf with you guys!” 

That said, Cedric managed to haggle Jordan down to a slightly less life-changing sum, saying that they settled on putting $1,000 on each hole. However, Cedric recalled of their agreed-upon gamble, “I didn’t realize it was 18 of those, and I lost every one of them!” 

Next time he goes golfing, Cedric would be wise to only make wagers with LeBron James — he’d never go undefeated when it counts.