Federal authorities on Thursday announced two sweeping indictments implicating mob families and current and former NBA players in a nationwide network of illegal gambling, insider betting, and organized crime that prosecutors say infiltrated professional basketball and high-stakes poker games.
Over 30 individuals are now in custody, officials said, with defendants including current and former NBA figures such as Chauncey Billups, Damon Jones, and Terry Rozier, as well as organized crime associates linked to the Bonanno, Gambino, and Genovese families.
In response to the allegations, the NBA said Terry Rozier and Chauncey Billups have been placed on immediate leave from their teams, “and we will continue to cooperate with the relevant authorities.”
“We take these allegations with the utmost seriousness, and the integrity of our game remains our top priority,” an NBA spokesperson said.
U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, Joseph Nocella, outlined the charges during an Oct. 23 press briefing in Downtown Brooklyn, saying the investigations encompass “two major cases, both involving fraud: One involves sports betting and the other involves illegal gambling, very specifically, rigged poker games.”
He added that the NBA-related case targeted “one of the most brazen sports corruption schemes since online sports betting became widely legalized in the United States,” while the poker case involved “a nationwide scheme to rig illegal poker games… using high tech cheating technology to steal millions of dollars from victims in underground poker games that were secretly fixed.”
FBI Director Kash Patel described the operation as a “historic arrest across a wide, sweeping criminal enterprise that envelops both the NBA and La Cosa Nostra.”
He noted that the operations required coordination across 11 states and close collaboration among the FBI, Homeland Security Investigations, the NYPD, and the Waterfront Commission.
“It’s not hundreds of dollars, it’s not thousands of dollars, it’s not tens of thousands of dollars, it’s not even millions of dollars,” Patel said, highlighting the massive scale of the scheme. “We’re talking about tens of millions of dollars in fraud, theft, and robbery across a multi-year investigation.”
funneling money to La Casa Nostra and enriching one of the most notorious criminal networks in
the world.”Photo by Lloyd Mitchell
NBA insider betting scheme
The first case involves six defendants accused of exploiting confidential information about NBA athletes and teams to place hundreds of thousands of dollars in bets, including prop bets on individual player performance.
According to the indictment, the defendants obtained non-public information through long-standing personal relationships with players and coaches and, in some instances, by threatening players over pre-existing gambling debts.
“The non-public information included when specific players would be sitting out future games or when they would pull themselves out early for purported injuries or illnesses,” Nocella said.
Defendants allegedly used this information to place bets through online sportsbooks and in-person casinos, often relying on networks of “straw bettors” to maximize profits.
Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch highlighted the complexity of investigations, which she attributed to more than two years of coordinated investigative work by the NYPD’s Organized Crime Task Force and the FBI.
Tisch noted that the investigations uncovered “criminal networks led by 34 individuals” who hid behind “layers of complexity, behind money and behind influence, believing those things would shield them from accountability.”
She detailed a specific NBA-related example involving Terry Rozier, an NBA player currently with the Miami Heat.
On March 23, 2023, prosecutors stated that Rozier allegedly informed associates he planned to leave a game early due to an injury. The crime group subsequently placed more than $200,000 in wagers on his performance, which paid out tens of thousands of dollars in profit.
All six defendants in this case face charges of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering, Nocella noted.
Rigged poker game operation
Officials said the second case involves 31 defendants and a sophisticated, multi-state scheme to rig high-stakes poker games using advanced cheating technologies.
“These defendants fleeced the victims out of tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars per game,” Nocella said.
The operation allegedly enlisted high-profile former NBA players, including Billups, a Pro Basketball Hall of Famer who at the time of the scheme was a former NBA player and is currently the head coach of the Portland Trail Blazers, and Damon Jones, another former NBA player and coach, as “face cards” to make the games appear legitimate.
Meanwhile, organized crime figures allegedly helped coordinate the events, take a cut of the profits, and enforce debt collection.
Officials said those involved allegedly used modified shuffling machines, X-ray tables, specialized contact lenses, and other devices to gain unfair advantages over victims, known in the indictment as “fish.”
The defendants then allegedly laundered the proceeds through cash exchanges, shell companies, and cryptocurrency transfers.
Charges in the poker case include wire fraud conspiracy, illegal gambling, money laundering, robbery, and extortion.
defendants utilized cheating technologies such as electronic poker chip trays that could
secretly read cards placed on the poker tablePhoto by Lloyd Mitchell
According to authorities, the scheme targeted multiple locations, including Manhattan, the Hamptons, Las Vegas, and Miami, and involved tens of millions of dollars in illicit gains.
Officials emphasized that both investigations remain ongoing. Nocella concluded the briefing with a warning to those involved: “Your winning streak has ended, your luck has run out. Violating the law is a losing proposition, and you can bet on that.”
