Feds charge NBA’s Terry Rozier, Chauncey Billups in mafia-backed gambling probes

BROOKLYN (CN) — NBA guard Terry Rozier and coach Chauncey Billups were among more than 30 people arrested by federal law enforcement on Thursday as part of sweeping yearslong probes into a mafia-backed gambling ring, according to prosecutors.

FBI Director Kash Patel and Joseph Nocella Jr., U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York, announced two indictments that charged the more than 30 defendants with crimes like wire fraud, money laundering, extortion, robbery and illegal gambling.

“This is an illegal gambling operation and sports rigging operation that spanned the course of years,” Nocella said at a joint news conference with Patel in Brooklyn on Thursday. “The FBI led a coordinate takedown across 11 states to arrest over 30 individuals today responsible for this case, which is very much ongoing.”

Not only did the indictments charge high-profile members of the NBA community — like Rozier, who is signed with the Miami Heat; Billups, the head coach of the Portland Trail Blazers; and Damon Jones, a former player and coach — but it also included members of the Bonanno, Gambino and Genovese crime families, Nocella said.

In one indictment, stemming from a probe called Operation Nothing but Bet, Rozier and others are charged with using inside information to bet online.

“They placed wagers on unders on players to score less, rebound less, assist less, using information that was not yet public,” NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch said at the news conference. “In some instances, players altered their performance or took themselves out of games to make sure that those bets paid out.”

Tisch claimed that one example occurred on March 23, 2023, while Rozier was playing for the Charlotte Hornets. According to prosecutors, Rozier told co-conspirators he planned to leave the game against the New Orleans Pelicans early with an injury. The co-conspirators then placed more than $200,000 on Rozier’s “under” statistics, which cashed out big when Rozier left the game after just 9 minutes of playing time.

“The proceeds were later delivered to his home where the group counted their cash,” Tisch said.

The NBA confirmed earlier this year that the game was under federal investigation. The league said in January that it had looked into the matter at the time and didn’t find any rules were broken.

The prosecutors also accuse both Jones and Rozier of using their deep connections and relationships with NBA athletes to get insider information that co-conspirators used for bets. In one instance, prosecutors said they got their information by threatening player Jontay Porter, who already had gambling debts.

Porter was already charged for his role in the scheme. He pleaded guilty in 2024 and was handed a lifetime ban from the NBA.

In the second indictment, prosecutors charge more than two dozen people, including Billups and several suspected mafia affiliates, with running rigged poker games tied to broader organized crime. Prosecutors say their yearslong probe into the games, called Operation Royal Flush, uncovered that the defendants used sophisticated cheating technology to swindle unsuspecting players, dubbed “fish,” out of millions of dollars.

Billups and other former professional athletes were supposedly used as so-called “face cards,” whose celebrity status lured “fish” and added legitimacy to the games.

Prosecutors say the defendants used altered shuffling machines that could read cards as it doled them out, informing an off-site operator of who had the best hand at the table. The operator would then text that information to one of the players, dubbed the “quarterback” or the “driver,” who would use signals to instruct co-conspirators how to bet.

“Defendants used other cheating technologies, such as poker chip tray analyzers, which is a poker chip tray that secretly reads cards using a hidden camera, special contact lenses or eyeglasses that could read premarked cards and an X-ray table that could read cards face-down on the table,” Nocella said.

Participants then laundered their winnings through shell companies and third parties, prosecutors write in the indictment. Overall, prosecutors say the rigged games cost the victims more than $7.1 million over the past six years.

While the two indictments are separate, three of the defendants were listed in both — including Jones. The defendants will be arraigned in the districts where they were arrested on Thursday. Billups was arrested in Portland, and Rozier in Orlando, according to prosecutors.

“We are in the process of reviewing the federal indictments announced today,” the NBA said in a statement on Thursday. “Terry Rozier and Chauncey Billups are being placed on immediate leave from their teams, and we will continue to cooperate with the relevant authorities. We take these allegations with the utmost seriousness, and the integrity of our game remains our top priority.”

Prosecutors said that the league has been fully cooperative throughout the process.

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