FBI arrests 34 in NBA, poker gambling probe involving crime families

By Jon Styf
The Center Square

Thirty-one people including Miami Heat player Terry Rozier and Portland Trail Blazers coach Chauncey Billups were arrested along with 32 others on Thursday morning in a wide-ranging sports wagering and underground poker fraud case.

The defendants, including 13 members and associates of New York-based crime families, are accused of using insider National Basketball Association information to win player prop bets along with using technology to rig poker games.

Federal Bureau of Investigation Director Kash Patel and United States Attorney Joseph Nocella, Jr. announced the charges on Thursday along with local law enforcement and the Department of Homeland Security.

“Your winning streak has ending,” Nocella said. “Your luck has run out.”

The insider non-public NBA information included knowledge of when specific players would miss future games and leave games early due to illness or injury, authorities said, and claimed that former NBA player Jontay Porter was threatened for information based on prior gambling debts.

The games involved the Charlotte Hornets, Portland Trail Blazers, LA Lakers and Toronto Raptors between December 2022 and March 2024.

The bettors would wager on players scoring fewer points or getting less rebounds and assists than expected when the players left a game early.

One example was Rozier, who was accused of leaving a game on March 23, 2023, so that $200,000 in bets placed on his performance would win.

“We’re talking about tens of millions of dollars in fraud,” Patel said.

The poker games were one using sophisticated technology including hidden cameras in poker chips, X-ray tables, cameras and lighting in the room and altered shuffling machines.

Information was relayed from that technology to players at the table in order to help them win with one bettor losing $1.8 million in a rigged game, accordng to New York Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch.

There were three overlapping defendants in the poker and NBA cases, including former Cleveland Cavaliers player Damon Jones.