NEW YORK (AP/Boston 25) — Portland Trail Blazers head coach Chauncey Billups and Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier are among more than 30 people charged in connection with schemes involving illegal sports betting and rigged poker games backed by the Mafia, authorities said on Thursday.
Rozier, who played for the Boston Celtics from 2015 to 2019, is accused of participating in an illegal sports betting scheme using private insider NBA information, officials said. Billups, who spent part of the 1997-1998 season with the Celtics, is charged in a separate indictment alleging a wide-ranging scheme to rig underground poker games that were backed by Mafia families, authorities said.
Damon Jones, who played 13 games with the Celtics during the 1998-1999 season and later coached in the NBA, is named in both indictments.
The indictments are related to two major cases, one involving sports betting and the second involving rigged poker games, U.S. Attorney Joseph Nocella Jr. said at a news conference with FBI Director Kash Patel. In the first case, six defendants are accused of participating in an insider sports betting conspiracy that exploited confidential information about NBA athletes and teams, Nocella said, calling it “one of the most brazen sports corruption schemes since online sports betting became widely legalized in the United States.”
The second case involves 31 defendants in a nationwide scheme to rig illegal poker games, Nocella said. The defendants include former professional athletes accused of using technology to steal millions of dollars from victims in underground poker games in the New York area that were backed by Mafia families, he said.
Read the rigged poker scheme indictment:
Athletes accused of leaving games early, access to private information
In the sports betting scheme, players sometimes altered their performance or took themselves out of games early, New York Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said. In one instance, Rozier, while playing for the Hornets, told other he was planning to leave the game early with a “supposed injury,” allowing others to place wagers that raked in thousands of dollars, Tisch said.
The indictment of Rozier and others says there are nine unnamed co-conspirators including a Florida resident who was an NBA player and an Oregon resident who was an NBA player from about 1997 to 2014 and an NBA coach since at least 2021, as well as a relative of Rozier.
Rozier, and other defendants, including Jones, “had access to private information known by NBA players or NBA coaches” that was likely to affect the outcome of games or players’ performances and provided that information to other co-conspirators in exchange for either a flat fee or a share of betting profits, the indictment says.
According to the sports betting indictment, prosecutors allege that on the morning of February 9, 2023, ahead of a Los Angeles Lakers game against the Milwaukee Bucks, Jones sent a text to a co-conspirator that read, “Get a big bet on Milwaukee tonight before the information is out! [Player 3] is out tonight. Bet enough so Djones can eat to [sic] now!!!”
While the indictment does not name Player 3, Lakers star LeBron James did not play in that game.
The indictment alleges that the information Jones provided was not public when he released it. He was working as an unofficial assistant coach for the Lakers at the time, worked as an assistant coach for the Cleveland Cavaliers during James’ second stint with that team, and played with James on the Cavaliers from 2005-2008.
Read the sports betting indictment:
The NBA had investigated
The NBA, which had investigated Rozier previously, had no immediate comment.
Rozier was in uniform as the Heat played the Magic in Orlando, Florida, in the season opener for both teams on Wednesday evening, though he did not play in the game. He was taken into custody in Orlando early Thursday morning. The team didn’t immediately comment on the arrest.
A message was left with Rozier’s lawyer, Jim Trusty, on Thursday. Trusty previously told ESPN that Rozier was told that an initial investigation determined he did nothing wrong after he met with NBA and FBI officials in 2023, the sports network reported.
A message seeking comment was left with Billups on Thursday morning.
The case was brought by the U.S. attorney’s office in Brooklyn that previously prosecuted ex-NBA player Jontay Porter. The former Toronto Raptors center pleaded guilty to charges that he withdrew early from games, claiming illness or injury, so that those in the know could win big by betting on him to underperform expectations.
Billups was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame last year. The five-time All-Star and three-time All-NBA point guard led the Detroit Pistons to their third league title in 2004 as NBA Finals MVP. Boston drafted the former Colorado star with the No. 3 pick overall in 1997. The player known as Mr. Big Shot also played for Toronto, Denver, Minnesota, the New York Knicks, and the Los Angeles Clippers. Billups won the Joe Dumars Trophy, the NBA’s sportsmanship award, in 2009 while playing for his hometown Denver Nuggets.
The 49-year-old Billups is in his fifth season as Portland’s coach, compiling a 117-212 record. The Trail Blazers opened the season Wednesday night at home with a 118-114 loss to Minnesota.
In the indictment, prosecutors allege that a co-conspirator told a defendant named in the sports betting indictment that the Trail Blazers were going to be “tanking to increase their odds of getting a better draft pick” and that “several of the Trail Blazers’ best players would not be playing” before a game against the Chicago Bulls on March 24, 2023.
The Blazers lost that game 124-96. Billups was coaching in that game.
While Billups wasn’t explicitly named in the sports betting indictment, court documents described the co-conspirator as “a resident of Oregon,” “an NBA player from approximately 1997 through 2014,” and “an NBA coach since at least 2021.”
A game involving Rozier that has been in question was played on March 23, 2023, a matchup between the Hornets and the New Orleans Pelicans. Rozier played the first 9 minutes and 36 seconds of that game — and not only did not return that night, citing a foot issue, but did not play again that season. Charlotte had eight games remaining and was not in playoff contention, so it did not seem particularly unusual that Rozier was shut down for the season’s final games.
In that March 23 game, Rozier finished with five points, four rebounds, and two assists in that opening period — a productive quarter but well below his usual total output for a full game.
Posts still online from March 23, 2023, show that some bettors were furious with sportsbooks that evening when it became evident that Rozier was not going to return to the Charlotte-New Orleans game after the first quarter, with many turning to social media to say that something “shady” had gone on regarding the prop bets involving his stats for that night.
A prop is a type of wager that allows gamblers to bet on whether a player will exceed a certain statistical number, such as whether the player will finish over or under a certain total of points, rebounds, assists, and more.
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