NBA coach and player among dozens charged in US gambling cases

An NBA player and a team head coach are among more than 30 people arrested as part of an FBI investigation into illegal sports betting and rigged poker games linked to organised crime.

Miami Heat point guard Terry Rozier and Chauncey Billups, head coach of the Portland Trail Blazers, were among those named in two indictments brought by federal prosecutors in Brooklyn, New York, on Thursday morning. 

One indictment alleges six defendants, including Rozier, used non-public information, such as when a player might sit out a game because of injury, in order to make online bets on how individual players would perform during NBA matches.

US attorney for the Eastern District of New York Joseph Nocella called it “one of the most brazen sports corruption schemes since online sports betting became legalised”.

Some of the allegations, which centre on seven NBA games that took place between February 2023 and March 2024, involved so-called prop bets, where wagers are placed on a player or team performance rather than the outcome of the game. Bets can include the number of points an individual will score during a match, or how many rebounds they will collect.

For example, Rozier is alleged to have tipped off a friend that he would leave a game early due to injury. The friend and his associates then placed bets or directed others to bet “more than $200,000” that Rozier would underperform expectations during the match. Rozier left the game in question after nine minutes, resulting in tens of thousands of dollars in betting profits for those involved, prosecutors said.

Earlier this week, NBA commissioner Adam Silver told The Pat McAfee Show that he had asked gambling companies to rein in prop bets. “It’s too easy to manipulate something which seems otherwise small and inconsequential to the overall score,” he said.

Sports betting has exploded in the US since 2018, when a federal ban was overturned, and is now legal in dozens of states. Annual revenue from sports betting in the US reached almost $14bn last year, according to the American Gaming Association.

The second indictment accuses 31 people of taking part in a scheme orchestrated by organised crime families to run fixed poker games across the US. The scheme involved rigged card shuffling machines, hidden cameras, X-ray tables and contact lenses that could read pre-marked cards.

Kash Patel, director of the FBI, said joint investigations involving the FBI, the police and the Department of Homeland Security had uncovered a “sweeping criminal enterprise that envelops both the NBA and La Cosa Nostra”, adding: “We’re talking about tens of millions of dollars in fraud and theft and robbery across a multiyear investigation.”

Those behind the rigged poker scheme included members of the Bonanno, Gambino, Genovese and Lucchese crime families, he said.

In some cases, victims — known as fish — were lured to games by the chance to play alongside former professional athletes, including Billups, prosecutors said.

“What the fish didn’t know is that everybody else at the poker game — from the dealer to the players — were in on the scam,” said Nocella.

Three people are named in both indictments. The charges include wire fraud, money laundering, extortion, robbery and illegal gambling. Prosecutors said some co-conspirators had previously been charged for their involvement in the basketball betting scheme, which Patel described as “the insider trading saga for the NBA”.

Last year, the NBA banned Jontay Porter of the Toronto Raptors for life after he was found to have placed bets on basketball matches using inside information. He later pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud, but has yet to be sentenced.

The NBA season began on Tuesday. The league said it had placed both Rozier and Billups on immediate leave from their teams. “We take these allegations with the utmost seriousness, and the integrity of our game remains our top priority,” it said.

The Miami Heat and the Portland Trail Blazers did not immediately respond to requests for comment.