{"id":36274,"date":"2025-07-31T06:41:07","date_gmt":"2025-07-31T06:41:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/36274\/"},"modified":"2025-07-31T06:41:07","modified_gmt":"2025-07-31T06:41:07","slug":"gilbert-arenas-arrested-for-hosting-illegal-poker-games-basketball-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/36274\/","title":{"rendered":"Gilbert Arenas arrested for hosting illegal poker games | Basketball News"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"article__subhead\">Former NBA All-Star is among six indicted on US federal charges for conducting illegal gambling at his California mansion.<\/p>\n<p>Former NBA All-Star guard Gilbert Arenas and five other defendants have been arrested on a federal indictment alleging they operated an illegal gambling business running high-stakes poker games at Arenas\u2019s mansion in Encino, California.<\/p>\n<p>Arenas, 43, is charged with one count of conspiracy to operate an illegal gambling business, one count of operating an illegal gambling business and one count of making false statements to federal investigators.<\/p>\n<p>He was scheduled to make his initial appearance and be arraigned on Wednesday afternoon in the United States District Court in downtown Los Angeles. If convicted, he would face a statutory maximum sentence of five years in federal prison for each count.<\/p>\n<p>Those arrested on Wednesday included 49-year-old Yevgeni Gershman, described as a suspected organised crime figure from Israel, according to a news release from the US Attorney\u2019s Office of the Central District of California.<\/p>\n<p>Arenas and the other defendants operated an illegal gambling business from September 2021 to July 2022, according to the indictment that was unsealed on Wednesday.<\/p>\n<p>Arenas rented out the Encino mansion for the co-conspirators to host the illegal \u201cPot Limit Omaha\u201d poker games, among other illegal games, with a fee charged from each pot either as a percentage or a fixed amount per hand.<\/p>\n<p>Gershman hired women who were paid in tips and served drinks, provided massages and offered companionship to the poker players, with the women charged a percentage of their earnings by the business operators, per the indictment. Chefs, valets and armed security guards were also hired to staff the games.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-arc-image-770 wp-image-3866797\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/AP25211829767351-1753938189.jpg\" alt=\"Melany Monaco leaves court.\" fetchpriority=\"low\"\/>Gilbert Arenas\u2019s girlfriend, Melany Monaco, leaves the Edward R Roybal Federal Building after attending a court session for the former NBA star in Encino, California, United States, on July 30, 2025 [Damian Dovarganes\/AP]<\/p>\n<p>Arenas was a three-time All-Star, and All-NBA second-team selection in 2006-07 and third team in 2004-05 and 2005-06.<\/p>\n<p>He averaged 20.7 points, 5.3 assists, 3.9 rebounds and 1.6 steals in 552 regular-season games (455 starts) for the Golden State Warriors (2001-03), Washington Wizards (2003-10), Orlando Magic (2010-11) and Memphis Grizzlies (2012).<\/p>\n<p>His NBA career was overshadowed by an incident in December 2009 in which he and Washington teammate Javaris Crittenton brought guns into the locker room two days after having a dispute on a flight during a card game.<\/p>\n<p>Arenas pleaded guilty to felony gun possession and was suspended for the final 50 games of the 2009-2010 NBA season.<\/p>\n<p>The Warriors selected Arenas in the second round (31st overall) of the 2001 NBA Draft out of Arizona.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-arc-image-770 wp-image-3866810\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/AP091014057110-1753938711.jpg\" alt=\"Gilbert Arenas in action.\" fetchpriority=\"low\"\/>Gilbert Arenas played 11 seasons in the National Basketball Association [File: Mark Duncan\/AP]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former NBA All-Star is among six indicted on US federal charges for conducting illegal gambling at his California&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":36275,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[434],"tags":[461,49,48,459,44,457,82,772,1690],"class_list":["post-36274","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-basketball","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nba","tag-news","tag-sport","tag-sports","tag-united-states","tag-us-canada"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36274","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36274"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36274\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36275"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36274"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36274"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36274"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}