NBA player and coach among dozens arrested in gambling probe tied to mafia

An NBA player and coach have been arrested along with more than 30 other people in two criminal cases alleging sprawling schemes to rake in millions by rigging sports bets and poker games involving mafia families, authorities in the US said.

Portland Trail Blazers coach Chauncey Billups is charged in an indictment alleging a wide-ranging scheme to rig underground poker games that were backed by La Cosa Nostra crime families, authorities said.

Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier is accused in a separate case of participating in an illegal sports betting scheme using private insider NBA information.

Both men face money laundering and wire fraud conspiracy charges and were expected to make initial court appearances later on Thursday.

In the first case, six defendants are accused of participating in an insider sports betting conspiracy that exploited confidential information about NBA athletes and teams, said Joseph Nocella, the US attorney for the eastern district of New York.

He called it “one of the most brazen sports corruption schemes since online sports betting became widely legalised in the United States”.

The second case involves 31 defendants in a nationwide scheme to rig illegal poker games, Mr Nocella said.

The defendants include former professional athletes accused of using technology to steal millions of dollars in underground poker games in the New York area that were backed by mafia families, he said.

“My message to the defendants who’ve been rounded up today is this: Your winning streak has ended. Your luck has run out,” Mr Nocella said.

A message seeking comment was left on Thursday morning with Billups.

Rozier’s lawyer, Jim Trusty, said in a statement that his client is “not a gambler” and “looks forward to winning this fight”.

Mr Trusty said the FBI had previously said his client was not a target in the probe.

But at 6am “they called to tell me FBI agents were trying to arrest him in a hotel,” Mr Trusty said.

“It is unfortunate that instead of allowing him to self-surrender they opted for a photo op. They wanted the misplaced glory of embarrassing a professional athlete with a perp walk. That tells you a lot about the motivations in this case.”

– Athletes accused of leaving games early

In the sports betting scheme, players sometimes altered their performance or took themselves out of games early, New York Police commissioner Jessica Tisch said.

In one instance, Rozier, while playing for the Hornets, told people he was planning to leave the game early with a “supposed injury”, allowing them to place wagers that raked in thousands of dollars, Ms Tisch said.

The indictment of Rozier and others says there are nine unnamed co-conspirators, including a Florida resident who was an NBA player, an Oregon resident who was an NBA player from about 1997 to 2014 and an NBA coach since at least 2021, as well as a relative of Rozier.

Rozier and other defendants “had access to private information known by NBA players or NBA coaches” that was likely to affect the outcome of games or players’ performances and provided that information to other co-conspirators in exchange for either a flat fee or a share of betting profits, the indictment says.

– The NBA had investigated

The NBA, which had investigated Rozier previously, had no immediate comment.

Rozier was in uniform as the Heat played the Magic on Wednesday evening in Orlando, Florida, in the season opener for both teams, though he did not play in the game.

He was taken into custody in Orlando early on Thursday morning.

The team did not immediately comment on the arrest.

The case was brought by the US attorney’s office in Brooklyn that previously prosecuted ex-NBA player Jontay Porter.

The former Toronto Raptors centre pleaded guilty to charges that he withdrew early from games, claiming illness or injury, so that those in the know could win big by betting on him to underperform expectations.

Billups was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame last year.