Federal authorities announced Thursday that Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier and Portland Trail Blazers Head Coach Chauncey Billups were arrested in separate gambling investigations.
The FBI and federal prosecutors said the two cases are unrelated but stem from overlapping probes into illegal gambling activity involving professional basketball figures.
Rozier was charged in connection with an alleged sports-betting ring that prosecutors say used private player information to gain an advantage on wagering markets.
Meanwhile, Billups was arrested in a separate case tied to a high-stakes poker network that allegedly defrauded wealthy participants.
FBI Director Kash Patel called the scope of both investigations “mindboggling,” highlighting the incredible amount of money being transferred between the parties involved.
“We’re talking about tens of millions of dollars in theft, in fraud, in robbery,” Patel explained, according to ABC News.
According to an indictment unsealed Thursday, Rozier “had access to private information known by NBA players or NBA coaches” that could influence betting outcomes, and then provided that information to other coconspirators for profit, per ESPN.
U.S. Attorney Joseph Nocella Jr. further detailed the allegations and said the non-public information “included when specific players would be sitting out future games, or when they would pull themselves out early for purported injuries or illnesses,” as reported by CNN.
This scheme of alleged gambling took place between January 2022 and March 2024 and resulted in a total of four NBA teams being named in the indictment.
The Charlotte Hornets, Los Angeles Lakers, Toronto Raptors, and Portland Trail Blazers were each specifically named in the indictment, though the actual teams are not implicated in the alleged crimes, per The New York Post.
Rozier’s attorney, Jim Trusty, strongly denied the allegations, saying prosecutors revived a “non-case” that the NBA and other parties had already reviewed.
“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,” continued the statement sent to The Athletic.
In the separate case involving Billups, prosecutors said the coach allegedly took part in poker games that used high-tech devices that could help predict outcomes and read other players’ cards.
These games allegedly used “custom shuffling machines that could read the order of cards, barcoded decks and hidden cameras built into tables and light fixtures” to rig games, according to CNN.
Nocella said these games “targeted victims known as ‘fish’ who were often lured to participate in these rigged games by the chance to play alongside former professional athletes, who were known as ‘face cards.’”
“What the victims, the ‘fish’, didn’t know is that everybody else at the poker game, from the dealers to the players, including the face cards, were in on the scam. Once the game was underway, the defendants fleeced the victims out of tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars per game,” Nocella added.
Christopher Raia, assistant director in charge of the FBI’s New York Field Office, said that 34 total people were arrested in connection with this case, including 13 members of the Mafia and associates from the Bonano, Gambino, and Genovese crime families, per ABC News.
Former NBA player and coach Damon Jones was also arrested in connection with this alleged gambling ring.