NBA Stars Arrested in Poker & Sports Betting Scandal

Last week, one of the most high-profile scandals in American sports history occurred. The tale could be from a movie (and perhaps will be one day. Two major stars were among those detained:

– NBA Hall of Famer, current (until his arrest) head coach of the Portland Trail Blazers and 2004 NBA Champion Chauncey Billups.

– Miami Heat player Terry Rozier, who was supposed to receive about $25 million under his contract with the club this year, has earned more than $160 million in his career, excluding sponsorship contracts and other bonuses.

The FBI was investigating two independent cases in parallel.

Rozier and five of his accomplices are accused of manipulating NBA bets using inside information. According to investigators, Rozier informed his accomplices in advance that he would be unable to finish a game in February 2023 due to injury. He left the game after nine minutes with a foot injury, and his accomplices bet over $200,000 on various individual stats (points, rebounds, assists, etc.) on Terry. In total, prosecutors identified at least seven "strange" games that took place between February 2023 and March 2024.

Doug Polk marveled at the absurdity in a recent video about the scandal.

"By all accounts, this is one of the dumbest stories I've ever heard," he said. "In the 2023 season, Terry Rozier was making $23 million playing basketball. There were 82 games in a season. That means Terry was making over $250,000 a game, yet was then trying to make tens of thousands of dollars on the side that he has to chop up with his friends."

The betting indictment also names "Co-Conspirator 8," an unnamed Oregon resident whose career overlaps with Billups's. This individual provided inside information on Trail Blazers games in March 2023.

The second indictment names 31 names, and explicitly names Chauncey Billups. The group is accused of running a high-stakes poker ring and having ties to organized crime. Prosecutors alleged that members of the Bonanno, Genovese, and Gambino crime families and their associates used sophisticated technology to defraud players.

Most often, they used modified shuffle machines that predicted the outcome of the hand at the table in advance, sent it to the "operator," who then passed the information on to the right players.

Chip trays with built-in card readers, special contact lenses, marked decks, and X-ray tables were also used ( Ed. – this is most likely a reference to the RFID technology familiar to all players, where information from the table is transmitted to a monitor ).

Billups and other professional athletes acted as bait, luring regulars into the game. Games were held in Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Miami, Manhattan, and the Hamptons.

One victim reportedly lost $1.8 million, with the total losses exceeding $7 million. However, the actual amounts are likely much higher, given the status and high-profile names of the scammers.

"Those bastards," high roller Keyboard Monkey quoted the news . "I'm one of the victims, too. Now it's clear why I never had a single winning session in that group."

In the comments, he added that he lost about $10 million in these games, but later deleted the tweet.

Onlookers reminded him of the famous quote: "If you can't find a fish at the table in the first half hour, then..."

"That's true, but my skill level is much higher than average. It was a shock to me that I was losing against such teams. I kept playing because I couldn't believe what was happening."

"I heard about these rigged private games a few years ago in Vegas and Miami, run by some bad actors from NY," wrote Hustler Live co-owner Ryan Feldman. "Don’t be surprised if a certain NBA HOFer and a certain boxer get arrested too."

"LA high-stakes home game players," Garrett Edelstein addressed his colleagues . "When you see your favorite former NBA player, comedian, or actor at a mansion game run by a shady-looking dude you’ve never seen before, run. At best the celebrities, too, are being duped. At worst, they’re in on it."

Social media users recalled that Matt Berkey, back in 2023, said on his podcast that Billups was likely to be shoved in games. No one paid attention back then.

"This must have been like five years ago, 2019-ish, where there was this game. It started in LA and then it came to Vegas for a few days. It was all built around Chauncey Billups and I had heard about the game and the person who told me about it was like, 'Look. I know the game runners. I'm telling you 100% this game is on the up and up.'

And I was like, "Well, I know a lot of the people that are involved, and I'm telling you 100% that it is not on the up and up'

We kind of went back and forth, and I agreed that like I just wasn't gonna go play.

But, I I had some friends who went and played it both in LA and in Vegas and it obviously like was for sure confirmed to be cheated. Like people who clearly didn't even understand the rules of No Limit Hold'em are just jamming hundreds of big blinds in with like a
gutshot and then just drilling it. Only the pros are losing.

It's tough too whenever you're dealing with somebody like high profile like that because they carry a lot of weight and hold a lot of power so all you can do is kind of unite together and threaten to publicly out him in some sort of capacity. In which case, you know
good luck. This guy beat r**e charges. You think he cares about you calling him a cheater? ( Ed. – In 1997, Billups and two of his teammates were charged with sexual assault, but the case was settled privately and never went to trial .)

A clip from the video was posted by many major channels that are completely unrelated to poker, and Berkey became a national star.

He appeared as an expert on the ESPN channel in a program hosted by one of the leading US sports analysts, Pat McAfee.

— I watched your clip and the way you were laying it out is as if you understood that people playing in this particular game know when its rigged, or when it's not rigged. How is that the case and what got these games caught?

"I don't want to lay it on the people who got taken for a ride in these games and make it seem like it was so obvious that they should have known. But, it is one of those things where, you as a professional—who doesn't really offer much to a high profile game like this that's run around celebrities—get the invite, your radar should kind of go up.

This particular game was happening in Los Angeles and Las Vegas. I had gotten multiple invites, along with friends who don't really have access to these private games, and it just seemed quite suspicious to me.

So, I was lucky enough to pass. I had a lot of friends who lost hundreds of thousands of dollars in these games, just for the opportunity to play with a few celebrities.

Once you get outside of the casino, the rules get bent quite a bit."

On Friday, Rozier and Billups were released from custody. A Florida judge denied prosecutors' request to set Rozier's bail at $10 million. The judge only required him to post his $6 million Florida home as collateral and surrender his passport. Billups was also forced to surrender his passport and post "large bail."

Both Rozier and Billups have denied the allegations and maintain their innocence. Both have been placed on administrative leave by the NBA pending the review of federal charges against them. Rozier is ineligible to play but will continue to receive his salary under his contract. Under the collective bargaining agreement with the NBA players' union, NBA lawyers must prove that the player violated league rules to suspend his contract. NBA Commissioner Adam Silver also has the authority to suspend a player without compensation. Congress has already required him to provide information about the scandal by October 31. Last year, the league conducted its own investigation into Rozier's illegal betting but found nothing suspicious.

Billups' contract isn't covered by the collective bargaining agreement, so his case hinges on the legal language in the documents. If found guilty in court, his contract could be terminated for "moral turpitude." Billups earned $4.7 million last season, and this summer he signed a two-year extension with a raise, though the exact amount hasn't been disclosed. In the coach's absence, Portland, considered one of the league's biggest underdogs before the season, even secured its first win, only to be swept by a strong Golden State Warriors.