Topline<\/p>\n
Miami Heat player Terry Rozier, Portland Trail Blazers head coach Chauncey Billups and former NBA player Damon Jones were among more than 30 people arrested separately Thursday morning as part of a multi-year federal investigation into two illegal gambling schemes, FBI Director Kash Patel said Thursday. <\/p>\n
Head coach Chauncey Billups of the Portland Trail Blazers on April 9, 2025.<\/p>\n
Getty ImagesKey Facts<\/p>\n
More than 30 people were arrested across 11 states Thursday in connection with what Patel called a \u201cwide sweeping criminal enterprise that envelops both the NBA and La Cosa Nostra,\u201d referencing the Italian-American Mafia. <\/p>\n
The arrests were spread across two different indictments, one focused on illegal sports betting on insider NBA information and one involving rigged poker games run by the Mafia. <\/p>\n
Six people, including Rozier and Jones, were arrested in connection with the insider sports betting conspiracy that U.S. Attorney Joseph Nocella called \u201cone of the most brazen sports corruption schemes\u201d since the legalization of online sports betting. <\/p>\n
Nocella said insider information was used to place illegal bets were placed on players across multiple teams, including the Charlotte Hornets, Trail Blazers, Los Angeles Lakers and Toronto Raptors, who Nocella mistakenly referred to as the \u201cToronto Rangers\u201d in a press conference. <\/p>\n
The second indictment, which charged Jones and Billups, among more than two dozen others, accuses defendants of helping to run rigged poker games in Manhattan, the Hamptons, Miami and Las Vegas to benefit the Mafia. <\/p>\n
Defendants have been charged with illegal gambling, extortion and money laundering, among other crimes.<\/p>\n
Get Forbes Breaking News Text Alerts:We\u2019re launching text message alerts so you’ll always know the biggest stories shaping the day\u2019s headlines. Text \u201cAlerts\u201d to (201) 335-0739<\/a>or sign up here: joinsubtext.com\/forbes.<\/a><\/p>\n Terry Rozier of the Miami Heat on Jan. 19, 2025. <\/p>\n Getty ImagesWhat To Know About The Sports Betting Scheme<\/p>\n Nocella alleged Rozier, Jones and others used inside, non-public information to place hundreds of thousands of dollars in prop bets, mostly on individual player performances, from December 2022 to March 2024. The information included when specific players would be sitting out of future games, or when they would \u201cpull themselves out early.\u201d Those involved in the scheme used information provided by Rozier, Jones and others to inform the bets, many of which were placed by proxies or straw bettors and most of which were successful. The scheme was linked to the one that resulted in Toronto Raptors forward Jontay Porter<\/a> being banned from the NBA for life, and Nocella said those running the most recent scheme threatened Porter on at least one occasion to provide more insider information by leveraging his existing gambling debts. Those arrested have been charged with conspiracy to commit bank and wire fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering. <\/p>\n What To Know About The Rigged Poker Games<\/p>\n The second scheme, which shares three defendants with the first, including Jones, charges more than 30 people with crimes connected to running rigged poker games across the U.S. Nocella said unwitting players were lured to games by the promise of playing with former professional athletes and then scammed out of millions of dollars via the use of \u201chigh tech cheating technology\u201d that included rigged card shufflers and cameras hidden in tables. The poker scheme included members of the Bonanno, Gambino, Lucchese, Genovese crime families, New York City Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said, adding that \u201cbringing four of the five families together in a single indictment is extraordinarily rare.\u201d <\/p>\n