An NBA player and coach are among dozens of people taken into custody as part of a sweeping FBI investigation into illegal sports betting and alleged mob-linked poker game-fixing.
Miami Heat player Terry Rozier and Portland Trail Blazers head coach Chauncey Billups were named by federal prosecutors in two separate indictments Thursday — both denying the charges.
Rozier is among six people arrested for alleged betting irregularities, including NBA players accused of faking injuries to influence the betting market.
Billups, a former Hall of Fame player turned coach, is one of 31 defendants in a separate illegal poker game case involving former players and the mob.
The case, which prosecutors said involved four of New York’s five major crime families, revealed an alleged scheme to get victims to play rigged poker games alongside famous athletes before millions of dollars were stolen from them.
According to authorities, they used technology including special contact lenses and glasses that can read pre-marked maps, as well as an X-ray table.
The NBA stated in a statement that Rozier and Billups will be suspended immediately while the federal indictments are reviewed.
“We take these allegations with the utmost seriousness, and the integrity of our game remains our top priority,” the statement read.
Rozier’s attorney denied the allegations to CBS News, saying, “Terry is not a gambler, but he is not afraid of a fight and is looking forward to winning this fight.”
He appeared in federal court in Orlando, Florida, on Thursday and was released on bail after putting up his $6m (around £4.5m) Florida home as collateral, according to local media.
Billups, who has led the Portland Trail Blazers since 2021, was arrested in Portland, Oregon, and arraigned Thursday, according to local media. He is also expected to post a substantial amount of bail for his release.
His lawyer, Chris Heywood, also denied the charges, telling CBS: “He will fight these charges with the same tenacity he has marked his 28-year career. We look forward to our day in court.”
FBI Director Kash Patel held a press conference with other prosecutors in Brooklyn, New York, on Thursday to announce the two indictments. He called the arrests “extraordinary” and stated that it was a “coordinated action in 11 federal states”.
“It’s about tens of millions of dollars of fraud, theft and robbery during a multi-year investigation,” he said.
The U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, Joseph Nocella Jr, said all defendants are innocent until proven guilty, but warned: “Your streak is over. Your luck has run out.”
NBA games under investigation
Prosecutors said the first case involved players and their associates, who allegedly used information not available to the public to manipulate bets on major betting platforms.
Nocella called it “one of the most brazen scandals in sports since online sports betting became widely legalized.”
Seven NBA games between February 2023 and March 2024 were identified as part of the case. Rozier is said to have attended a game between the Charlotte Hornets and the New Orleans Pelicans while playing for the Hornets.
Rozier reportedly told a friend that he would leave the game early due to an injury. The friend and his associates then placed bets, or instructed others to bet, “in excess of $200,000” that Rozier would not meet expectations in that game, prosecutors said.
He left the field after nine minutes, resulting in tens of thousands of dollars in betting profits for those involved.
During the game, Rozier scored just five points before exiting due to soreness in his right foot, according to the NBA’s official game report. Before that game, he was averaging 35 minutes per game and scoring around 21 points.
“As the NBA season begins, his career is already on the bench, not because of injury, but because of his integrity,” New York Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said.
Terry Rozier’s attorney, James Trusty, said in a statement that prosecutors “appear to be relying on the words of spectacularly unreliable sources rather than actual evidence of wrongdoing. Terry was exonerated by the NBA, and these prosecutors reopened that non-existent case.”
Trusty said he has been representing Rozier for more than a year and that prosecutors characterized Rozier as a “person of interest” rather than a target until he was told FBI agents were arresting the player at a hotel Thursday morning.
Former NBA player Damon Jones was also arrested as part of the investigation.
Jones was reportedly involved in two of the identified games – when the Los Angeles Lakers played the Milwaukee Bucks in February 2023 and in January 2024 when the Lakers played the Oklahoma City Thunder.
Sports betting was banned in most of the US from 1992 until 2018, when the Supreme Court transferred regulation of the practice to the federal state level.
Since the federal ban was lifted, sports betting has seen a surge, with major sports leagues and media companies contracting with betting firms to participate in the billion-dollar industry.
Fixed poker games and the mafia
A second indictment, released Thursday, includes 31 defendants accused of participating in a scheme to fix illegal poker games and steal millions of dollars. The case involved 13 members and associates of the Bonanno, Genovese and Gambino crime families from New York.
Nocella said the victims were drawn to play games with former professional athletes, including Billups and Jones, in Las Vegas, Miami, Manhattan and the Hamptons.
The victims, he said, were losing tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars per game.
The defendants used “highly sophisticated technology,” such as modified shuffling machines that could read cards. Some defendants used special contact lenses and glasses to read the marked cards, and an X-ray table that could read the cards face down.
“What (the victims) didn’t know was that everyone else in the poker game — from the dealer to the player — was in on the conspiracy,” Nocella said.
Tisch added that when people didn’t want to pay, organized crime families used threats and intimidation to get them to hand over the money.
Charges include robbery, extortion, wire fraud, bank fraud and illegal betting.
The scheme defrauded victims out of $7 million, with one person losing $1.8 million, officials said.
“This is just the tip of the iceberg,” said Christopher Raia, assistant director of the FBI in New York, adding that the FBI is working hard to ensure members of mob families “do not continue to harm our communities.”
(TIP/Source: federalna.ba/BBC/Photo: BBC)
