In a devastating blow to the integrity of professional basketball, the FBI announced the arrests of more than 30 individuals, including a current NBA head coach, an All-Star guard, and a former player, on charges related to illegal gambling, sports-betting corruption, and a massive criminal network with ties to the Mafia.
The operation, which the FBI Director Kash Patel called “historic,” has exposed two separate but overlapping schemes: one involving the rigging of high-stakes, underground poker games, and another focused on exploiting confidential NBA insider information for illicit sports betting profits.
Among the high-profile defendants are:
- Chauncey Billups, Head Coach of the Portland Trail Blazers and an NBA champion, charged in connection with operating illegal poker games allegedly backed by members of three notorious New York organized crime families—the Bonanno, Gambino, and Genovese families.
- Terry Rozier, Guard for the Miami Heat, charged in a scheme to use non-public, “insider information” to influence player prop bets, including allegations that he faked an injury to benefit the betting ring.
- Damon Jones, a former NBA player and assistant coach, also arrested and accused of having overlapping roles in both the sports-betting conspiracy and the Mafia-linked poker ring.
The Rigged Game: Insider Trading on the Hardwood
The charges against Rozier are particularly alarming to the league, which has already been grappling with the fallout from the Jontay Porter betting scandal. U.S. Attorney Joseph Nocella Jr. described the sports betting scheme as “one of the most brazen sports corruption schemes” since the rise of legalized betting.
Rozier and his co-conspirators allegedly had access to private information from players and coaches—such as injury details, lineup changes, and strategic plays—and then sold that knowledge to bettors for a cut of the profits.
A specific example cited by federal officials focuses on a March 2023 game where Rozier, then with the Charlotte Hornets, suddenly left the contest citing a foot injury. That departure, which effectively “killed” his player performance metrics, coincided with a massive, coordinated surge of bets on the ‘under’ for his statistical props, netting the ring thousands of dollars.
The Mob’s Grip: Billups and the Underground Poker Ring
In a separate indictment that echoes Cold War-era tales of organized crime infiltrating American sports, Head Coach Chauncey Billups, who had just coached the Trail Blazers in their season opener on Wednesday, was arrested for his alleged involvement in an underground poker operation.
According to the U.S. Attorney’s office, the operation utilized high-tech cheating technology to secretly fix games, robbing millions from unsuspecting victims. The indictment explicitly links the profits generated from the games in cities like Manhattan, Miami, and Las Vegas to the coffers of three major New York Mafia families. Both Billups and Jones were allegedly compensated for their participation.
The timing of the arrests—at the very start of the 2025-26 NBA season—appears carefully calculated to send a powerful message about the gravity of the case. Federal authorities emphasized that the criminal enterprise spanned years and involved “tens of millions of dollars in fraud.”
The NBA has yet to issue a formal statement, but the sheer scope of the investigation places the league under intense scrutiny. This latest crisis underscores the perilous intersection of professional sports, the multi-billion-dollar legal gambling industry, and the persistent threat of organized crime, forcing the league to immediately confront a massive internal breach of trust.
As federal authorities promise more names will be announced, the question is no longer who is gambling illegally, but how deeply the corruption has spread.