FBI Arrests NBA Players, Coaches In Mafia-Linked Gambling Probe
Portland Trail Blazers head coach Chauncey Billups, Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier, and former NBA player and coach Damon Jones were among more than 30 people arrested Thursday as part of a sweeping FBI operation targeting organized crime and illegal sports betting.
FBI Director Kash Patel said the arrests capped a multi-year investigation into a sprawling gambling and game-rigging scheme, some of which was backed by the Italian-American mafia known as the La Cosa Nostra crime families.
INTO THE STING
Authorities detailed two operations, codenamed “Operation Zhen Diagram” and “Operation "Nothing But Bet.” The first centered on rigged underground poker games using high-tech cheating technology, where victims lost more than $7 million since 2019. The second centered on insider information used in sports betting.
Patel said the FBI conducted a coordinated takedown across 11 states, with charges ranging from wire fraud, money laundering, extortion, robbery, and illegal gambling.
The poker scheme: Billups, a 17-year NBA veteran, Hall of Famer, and five-time All-Star, was reportedly arrested in connection with the illegal poker activity, which involved a card-counting machine, hand signal communications, and marked cards. Law enforcement said he was enlisted to sit at poker tables to make them seem legitimate.
The sports-betting scheme: Rozier, a 10-year NBA veteran, was arrested in connection with the sports gambling component of the investigation, mostly making bets on individual player performances and statistics. Authorities allege he helped manipulate multiple game statistics — like faking an injury, so that his associates could profit by betting against him.
The 31-year-old is currently in the final season of a four-year, $96 million contract he signed with the Charlotte Hornets in 2021 before being traded to Miami.
Rozier’s lawyer said he in “not a gambler” and accused the feds of wanting the “misplaced glory of embarrassing a professional athlete with a perp walk,” telling Newsweek, “They appear to be taking the word of spectacularly incredible sources rather than relying on actual evidence of wrongdoing.”
SPORTS BETTING ON THE RISE
It’s been seven years since the Supreme Court struck down the federal ban on state authorization of sports betting. Now, 39 states plus D.C. allow it. About 22% of U.S. adults say they’ve placed a sports bet in the past year — up from 19% three years ago, according to a Pew Research survey out this month. The increase is driven by online sports betting.
Revenues from in-game sports bets could triple to more than $14 billion by 2030, according to a recent report from Citizens Bank.
But public concern is also rising: 43% of Americans now say legalized sports betting is bad for society, up from 34% in 2022, according to Pew, citing concerns about gambling addiction and other societal harms.