NBA star arrested in mafia poker and insider gambling scandal
NBA celebrities including Chauncey Billups and Terry Rozier have been arrested in connection with Mafia poker and insider gambling fraud cases.
Portland Trail Blazers head coach Chauncey Billups is one of 31 defendants charged with helping mobsters defraud unsuspecting poker players out of millions of dollars during a series of match-fixing games.
All of this was outlined in a federal indictment dropped on Thursday, October 23, leading to the arrests of Billups and others. According to the indictment, the defendants used wireless fraud technology to operate fraudulent poker games in the Hamptons, Miami, Las Vegas, Manhattan and other locations.
Although Billups was not the Trail Blazers’ coach at the time of his alleged involvement and was just a former NBA player, he was one of the people who lured the victims into illegal poker games.
“Unbeknownst to the Fish victims, everyone else participating in the poker game, from the dealer to the players, including the face cards, was complicit in the fraud,” said Joseph Nocera, Jr., U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York. “Once the matches began, the defendants extorted the victims of tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars per match.”
But exactly how much money is allegedly defrauded from victims in these poker games?
The alleged conspiracy “resulted in losses of at least $7.15 million to the victims,” according to the federal indictment, but the documents do not say how much Billups and other alleged participants earned from the scheme.
However, the indictment cites specific examples to illustrate the scope of the operation.
In one case, a fraudulent shuffle machine was used to defraud a victim of at least $50,000 during a fraudulent poker game in Las Vegas around April 2019, the indictment states. Billups was listed as a participant in that game.
The indictment also lists other illegal poker games that took place in Manhattan between June and July 2023, allegedly defrauding one anonymous victim of approximately $1.8 million. Billups was not involved in the incident, but a fraudulent shuffle machine was also allegedly used to deceive the victim.
Another fraudulent poker game allegedly took place around June 2023 in East Hampton, New York, where two anonymous victims were allegedly defrauded of $46,500 and $105,000, respectively. Billups was not listed in that alleged game, nor was he listed in the final case, which occurred in Miami in September 2024 and defrauded another anonymous victim of $60,000.
The indictment does not provide a full accounting of all the money allegedly obtained from the operation.
Mr. Billups was indicted on October 23 in Mark O. Hatfield Federal Court in Portland, Oregon, on charges of wire fraud conspiracy and money laundering conspiracy.
Charges in the scheme include conspiracy to commit wire fraud, illegal gambling, money laundering, robbery and extortion. This case is unrelated to the insider sports betting conspiracy that led to the arrest of Miami Heat player Terry Rozier.
The NBA placed Billups and Rozier on “immediate leave.”
