OAN Staff Blake Wolf
11:31 AM – Thursday, October 23, 2025
Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier and Portland Trail Blazers head coach Chauncey Billups were among more than thirty individuals arrested as part of a sweeping FBI investigation into illegal sports betting and rigged underground poker games allegedly connected to major organized-crime families.
According to officials, the coordinated arrests followed a multi-year federal probe that uncovered two overlapping criminal networks involving tens of millions of dollars in illicit gambling activity. The investigation named four New York Mafia organizations — the Bonanno, Gambino, Genovese, and Lucchese crime families — as being tied to the schemes.
Billups is accused of participating in a high-stakes poker-rigging operation allegedly backed by organized-crime figures, while Rozier is accused of involvement in an illegal sports-betting ring that used non-public NBA information for profit.
The FBI confirmed that the arrests stemmed from two related investigations run out of the Eastern District of New York. Both Billups and Rozier face wire-fraud and money-laundering conspiracy charges, among others. Former Cleveland Cavaliers assistant coach Damon Jones was also charged in connection with the case.
“This is an illegal gambling operation and sports-rigging operation that spans the course of years,” Patel stated on Thursday.
Advertisement“Day in and day out, this FBI is following the money – and today is the result of that outstanding work,” he continued. “This operation involved an expensive effort across 11 states, arresting 34 subjects, including multiple NBA players and coaches, who allegedly took advantage of their own positions of power to rig gambling systems for their own benefit — eventually funneling money to La Cosa Nostra, enriching some of the most notorious criminal networks in the world.”
“That ends today — and the FBI’s efforts to make sure gambling operations of all kinds stay within the law are only beginning. Thank you to the outstanding men and women of the FBI who pursued this case and followed the facts accordingly,” Patel added.
In the federal investigation, authorities revealed that a confidential source recorded thousands of phone calls and meetings with individuals of interest in the case. The source gradually gained trust and eventually participated in the rigged poker games.
Officials said the games targeted victims described as “fish,” who were lured by the opportunity to play alongside well-known former athletes — labelled by the organizers as “face cards.” In particular, Billups and Jones are identified in the indictment as two of the “face cards” in the rigged-poker scheme.
That scheme used certain cheating technology, including altered shuffle machines and tables with X-ray or card-reading capabilities.
Prosecutor Joseph Nocella Jr. stated that the other related illegal sports-betting operation used non-public information about players — for example, when players would sit out games or check out early due to injuries or illnesses — to place wagers.
He further stated that in one instance, the conspirators “threatened” Jontay Porter, who pleaded guilty last year to conspiracy to commit wire fraud and received a lifetime ban from the NBA, because of existing gambling debts and thus coerced his participation in the scheme.
“In one instance, they got their information by threatening a current player, Porter, because of his preexisting gambling debts,” Nocella stated. “Defendants used this information to place hundreds of thousands of dollars in fraudulent bets – mostly in the form of prop bets on individual player performance.”
“The defendants relied on a network of straw bettors to place the maximum amount of bets to increase their potential profits. Most of these bets succeeded and the intended losses were in the millions of dollars. The defendants then laundered their illegal winnings in various ways.”
A separate incident occurred on March 23, 2023, in which Rozier allegedly faked an injury to leave a game between the Charlotte Hornets and the New Orleans Pelicans. At the time, Rozier allegedly informed his co-defendant, Deniro Laster, that he was planning to take himself out of the game so that Laster would be able to bet on it, according to New York City Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch.
“In March 2023, the NBA was alerted to unusual betting activity related to Terry Rozier’s performance in a game between Charlotte and New Orleans,” stated NBA spokesman Mike Bass earlier this year.
“The league conducted an investigation and did not find a violation of NBA rules. We are now aware of an investigation by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York related to this matter and have been cooperating with that investigation,” he added. “On advice from counsel, I can’t answer any questions about that matter.
Meanwhile, Rozier’s agent, Jim Trusty, stated: “A long time ago we reached out to these prosecutors to tell them we should have an open line of communication. They characterized Terry as a subject, not a target, but at 6 a.m. this morning they called to tell me FBI agents were trying to arrest him in a hotel.”
“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,” he added.
Federal prosecutors said that six defendants are charged in connection with the illegal sports-betting operation, while a separate indictment names 31 defendants accused of participating in the rigged-poker-game conspiracy. Officials noted that some individuals may overlap between the two cases.
Both Billups and Rozier are expected to be arraigned in federal court in Brooklyn at a later date following their initial arrests in their respective home jurisdictions.
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