NBA stars among dozens arrested in illegal gambling probe

Chauncey Billups, an NBA Hall of Fame player and head coach of the Portland Trail Blazers, and Terry Rozier, a guard with the Miami Heat, were among more than 30 people charged on Thursday in connection with two separate but related federal gambling investigations that involved the league and the Mafia.

The schemes - one of them focused on insider sports betting and another that rigged poker games nationwide - spanned years and involved tens of millions of dollars in illicit gains from wire fraud, money laundering, extortion and gambling, FBI Director Kash Patel said at a press conference in Brooklyn on Thursday.

Rozier was one of several National Basketball Association insiders who allegedly provided non-public information about upcoming games to their criminal partners, who in turn used straw bettors to place multiple bets based on the tips, authorities said.

In March 2023, for instance, Rozier told associates in advance he would leave a game early with a supposed injury, allowing them to place more than $200,000 in bets that he would not reach his expected statistical totals for the game, officials said.

"This is the insider trading saga for the NBA," Patel said.

Billups was charged in a separate case with helping to rig poker games to defraud unknowing players who were lured to the games with the promise of playing against celebrities, officials said. The defendants employed sophisticated technology to fix the games in New York, Las Vegas, Miami and elsewhere, including fraudulent card shufflers and x-ray tables.

That scheme also involved the Bonanno, Gambino, Lucchese and Genovese organized crime families in New York, which controlled some of the underground poker games in the city where the rigging took place, officials said. The families took a cut of the profits, used extortion and robbery to collect unpaid debts and laundered 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 US Attorney Joseph Nocella said, including former Cleveland Cavaliers player and assistant coach Damon Jones.

In a statement, the NBA said Rozier and Billups had been placed on leave and that the league would continue to cooperate with authorities.

"We

take these allegations with the utmost seriousness, and the integrity of our game remains our top priority," the statement said.

Rozier's lawyer, James Trusty, said prosecutors "appear to be taking the word of spectacularly incredible sources rather than relying on actual evidence of wrongdoing. Terry was cleared by the NBA and these prosecutors revived that non-case."

The arrests are likely to increase scrutiny of the relationship between online sportsbooks and professional sports leagues, which have reaped the benefits of a massive expansion in legalized betting even as they have also sought to assure fans and gamblers that the integrity of the game is unaffected.

Some lawmakers have expressed concern about the proliferation of bets that could be most easily manipulated by players, such as prop bets, in which bettors can wager on whether an individual player will hit or miss specific statistical totals in a given game.

NBA Commissioner Adam Silver told ESPN's "The Pat McAfee Show" on Tuesday that he supported more federal regulation on sports betting and that the league had asked some betting partners to limit prop bets for more marginal players.

Several players in the "Big Four" North American men's leagues - the NBA, the National Football League, Major League Baseball and the National Hockey League - have faced punishment for gambling in recent years.

Former NBA player Jontay Porter was banned from the league for life and pleaded guilty in 2024 after he was accused of manipulating his performance to help associates win wagers on his play, a case that was linked to Thursday's indictment.

Pete Rose, Major League Baseball's all-time hits leader, was barred for life from MLB in 1989 after he was caught betting on games while managing the Cincinnati Reds.

After repeated calls from US President Donald Trump, Rose was posthumously removed from MLB's permanently 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, including the New York Knicks, and won a championship with the Detroit Pistons in 2004, when he was named Most Valuable Player of the NBA Finals.

He was expected to make an initial court appearance on Thursday in Portland.

Rozier, 31, is in his 11th NBA season and has averaged 13.9 points a game in his career. His 2025-26 salary is $26.6 million, according to the sports contract tracking website Spotrac.

He was arrested in Orlando, Florida, where the Heat played the Magic on Wednesday night, and was expected to appear in court there on Thursday afternoon.