On Thursday, more than 30 people, including NBA Hall of Famer and Portland Trail Blazers head coach Chauncey Billups and Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier, were indicted in connection with two separate but related federal gambling investigations involving the league and the Mafia.
One focused on insider sports betting and the other was a nationwide scheme to rig poker games that spanned several years and involved tens of millions of dollars in illicit profits from wire fraud, money laundering, extortion and gambling, FBI Director Kash Patel said at a press conference in Brooklyn on Thursday.
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Rozier was one of several National Basketball Association insiders who allegedly provided nonpublic information about upcoming games to a partner in crime who used straw bettors to place multiple bets based on the tips, authorities said.
For example, in March 2023, Rozier informed officials in advance that he intended to leave a game due to a suspected injury and allowed them to place bets of more than $200,000 on the condition that the game did not meet his expected statistical totals, officials said.
“This is a story of insider trading in the NBA,” Patel said.
Billups was charged in a separate case with aiding and abetting the rigging of poker games to defraud unsuspecting players who were lured into the games with promises of matches against celebrities, officials said. The defendants used sophisticated technology, including fraudulent card shufflers and X-ray examination tables, to modify games in New York, Las Vegas, Miami and other locations.
The scheme also involved New York’s Bonano, Gambino, Ruccies and Genovese organized crime families, which controlled underground poker games in parts of the city where the bids took place, officials said. Prosecutors say the families took some of the profits, used extortion and robbery to collect unpaid debts, and laundered the proceeds in virtual currency and other means.
Brooklyn U.S. Attorney Joseph Nocera said the arrests stem from two separate indictments, but each case indicts a small number of defendants, including former Cleveland Cavaliers player and assistant coach Damon Jones.
Closer scrutiny of sports betting
The NBA said in a statement that Rozier and Billups have been placed on administrative leave and that the league will continue to cooperate with authorities.
“We take these allegations with the utmost seriousness, and the integrity of our game remains our top priority,” the statement said.
Rozier’s attorney, James Trusty, said prosecutors “appear to be taking the word of an astonishingly implausible source rather than relying on actual evidence of wrongdoing. Terry was acquitted by the NBA, and prosecutors reinstated that non-event.”
The latest arrest is likely to increase scrutiny of the relationship between online sportsbooks and professional sports leagues. Professional sports leagues have benefited from the significant expansion of legalized gambling while assuring fans and gamblers that the integrity of the game will not be affected.
Some lawmakers have expressed concern about the proliferation of bets that are most easily manipulated by players, such as prop bets, in which an individual player can bet that a certain statistical total will hit or miss in a particular game.
NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said Tuesday on ESPN’s “The Pat McAfee Show” that he supports stronger federal regulation of sports betting and that the league has asked some betting partners to limit prop bets on lesser players.
players who were punished
Several players in North America’s “Big Four” men’s leagues – the NBA, National Football League, Major League Baseball and National Hockey League – have faced punishment for gambling in recent years.
Former NBA player Jontay Porter, who was banned for life from the league after being accused of manipulating his performance so officials could win money on his play, is connected to Thursday’s indictment, which he pleaded guilty to in 2024.
Pete Rose, Major League Baseball’s all-time hitting leader, was banned from MLB for life in 1989 after it was discovered that he was betting on games while he was manager of the Cincinnati Reds.
Following repeated calls from President Donald Trump, Rose was posthumously removed from MLB’s permanently disqualified list earlier this year and became eligible for the Hall of Fame.
Billups, 49, is in his fifth year as Portland’s head coach. He played for seven teams during his NBA career, including the New York Knicks, won a championship with the Detroit Pistons in 2004, and was named the Most Valuable Player of the NBA Finals.
He is scheduled to make his first court appearance Thursday in Portland.
Rozier, 31, is in his 11th NBA season and has averaged 13.9 points per game in his career. His annual salary in 2025-26 is $26.6 million, according to sports contract tracking site Spotrac.
He was arrested Wednesday night in Orlando, Fla., where the Heat play the Magic, and was scheduled to appear in court there Thursday afternoon.
