NBA Hall of Fame player and Portland Trail Blazers coach Chauncey Billups and Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier were among more than 30 people charged Thursday in connection with two separate but related federal gambling investigations involving the league and organized crime.
The schemes — one focused on insider sports betting and another that rigged poker games across the country — spanned 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 news conference in Brooklyn on Thursday.
Rozier was one of several members of the National Basketball Association who provided non-public information about how they would perform to their criminal partners, who in turn used fake bettors to place multiple bets based on those tips, authorities said.
In March 2023, for example, Rozier told associates in advance that he would leave a game early due to a suspected injury, allowing them to profit when he fell short of expected statistical totals for the game, officials said.
“This is the saga of insider trading in the NBA,” Patel said.
Billups was charged in a separate case with helping to rig poker games to defraud unsuspecting players who were lured into the games with the promise of playing against celebrities, authorities said. The defendants employed sophisticated technology, including fraudulent card shufflers and x-ray tables.
That scheme also involved the Bonano, Gambino, Lucchese and Genovese organized crime families in New York, who kept a portion of the profits, used extortion and theft to collect unpaid debts and laundered the proceeds through cryptocurrency and other means, according to prosecutors.
While the arrests stemmed from two separate indictments, a handful of defendants were charged in both cases, Brooklyn U.S. Attorney Joseph Nocella said, including former Cleveland Cavaliers player and assistant coach Damon Jones.
Representatives for the Heat, Blazers and NBA did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Rozier’s attorney, James Trusty, said prosecutors “appear to be taking the word of incredibly questionable sources rather than relying on actual evidence of wrongdoing. Terry was acquitted by the NBA and these prosecutors revived that baseless case.”
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Proliferation of illegal betting in US sports leagues
The arrests are expected to increase scrutiny of the relationship between online sports books and professional leagues, which have reaped the benefits of a massive expansion of legalized betting while trying to assure fans and players that the integrity of their game will not be affected.
Some lawmakers have expressed concern about the proliferation of bets that could be easily manipulated by players, such as special bets, in which bettors can bet on whether or not an individual player will reach specific statistical totals in a given game.
Several players in North America’s “big four” men’s leagues — the NBA, the National Football League, Major League Baseball and the National Hockey League — have faced game-playing penalties in recent years.
Former NBA player Jontay Porter was banned from the league for life and pleaded guilty in 2024 after being accused of manipulating his performance to help associates win bets on his play, a case officials said was related to Thursday’s indictment.
Pete Rose, Major League Baseball’s all-time hitter, was banned for life from the MLB in 1989 after being caught betting on games while he was manager of the Cincinnati Reds. Following repeated calls from US President Donald Trump, Rose was posthumously removed from MLB’s permanent ineligible list earlier this year, making him 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 and won a championship with the Detroit Pistons in 2004, when he was named NBA Finals MVP. He was expected to make an initial court appearance later Thursday in Portland.
Rozier, 31, is in his 11th NBA season and has averaged 13.9 points per game for his career. He had been under scrutiny for a March 2023 match, after several online sportsbooks spotted an unusual number of bets indicating his stats would be lower than projected. He left the game after just nine minutes, citing an injury.
He was arrested in Orlando, Florida, where the Heat played the Magic on Wednesday night, and was expected to appear in court there Thursday afternoon.
With information from Reuters
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