Three current and former NBA players, as well as members of the four New York mafia families, were arrested on Oct. 25 for their participation in illegal poker games and NBA bets across the country. Special technology and player involvement in NBA games were utilized to rig poker games and bets.
Terry Rozier, guard for the Miami Heat, was accused of faking an injury in a game on Mar. 23, 2023. Allegedly, there were more than $200,000 in bets under Rozier’s name. At the time, Rozier was playing for the Charlotte Hornets, and he logged nine and a half minutes in the game. Rozier is accused of participating in an illegal betting scheme by faking an injury to cash in on a prop bet.
Kate Reilly, a partner at the law firm Pryor Cashman, said in an episode of The Hoop Collective Podcast that, “these [players and coaches] had access to nonpublic information about things happening in the NBA, and they sold that information to people who used it to place bets.” She added how “when they placed those bets knowing they had nonpublic information, they defrauded the sports betting websites they were placing the bets on, and then they laundered the proceeds.”
Coach for the Portland Trailblazers, Chauncey Billups, and former Cleveland Cavaliers player, Damon Jones, were charged with helping deceive the victims of illegal poker games. According to FBI Director Kash Patel in a news conference in October, Rozier, Billups and Jones were all arrested as a result of their actions within the scandal.
Investigators in the U.S. Department of Homeland Security uncovered the scandal more than four years ago. Several companies worked with Homeland Security to reveal the crimes that cheated victims out of close to $7 million.
“This complex scheme was so far-reaching that it included members from four of the organized crime families,” Jessica Tisch, Commissioner of the New York Police Department, said in a news conference on Oct. 23.
The poker scheme was elaborate, involving high tech machinery. Usually, there are poker machines to help automatically shuffle cards for each deck. However, the machine used to rig the games had hidden technology to read the cards in the deck. The machine would shuffle the cards in a certain order. Another member of the poker game would receive photos of the cards from the machine. The information would be collected and given to a player in the poker game, who would reveal it to the formation to other players involved in the scheme. This resulted in individual victims losing thousands of dollars.
In addition, poker chip trays that could read cards from hidden cameras were also used. Other tools included glasses and contact lenses that could read marked cards, as well as an X-ray table to read cards that were lying face down.
To gather evidence, investigators collected images from phones and text messages. They also obtained images from the technology used to rig the poker games.
Text messages were also passed during games. In advance, Jones asked a defendant for $10,000 for a poker game. Jones wrote, “Hey Rob can u send one of those wires on ur phone? I don’t know how much the job pays tomorrow but can I get 10k advance on it?? GOD really blessed me that [you] have action for me cause I needed it today bad.” This text message was written on Sept. 19, 2023. The same day, a different defendant allegedly sent Jones $2,500 over a digital payment service.
Through surveillance cameras, law enforcement showed photos of people who delivered security to the illegal poker games in May of 2023 and August of 2023. The photos were taken in New York, one of the locations of the poker games.
Lastly, bank records showed that a defendant sent $100,000 to another defendant’s company in exchange for cash. The investigators used this to help prove how the defendants were involved in money laundering.
The scheme will ultimately be settled in court. Jones had already pleaded not guilty and was let go on a $200,000 bond. Billups and Rozier have yet to appear in court, with Billups’ court date scheduled for Nov. 24 and Rozier’s sentencing scheduled for Dec. 8.
