An NBA player and coach are among more than 30 people charged in connection with schemes involving illegal sports betting and rigged poker games backed by the Mafia, authorities in the US said.
Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier is accused of participating in an illegal sports betting scheme using private insider NBA information, officials said.
Portland Trail Blazers head coach Chauncey Billups is charged in a separate indictment alleging a wide-ranging scheme to rig underground poker games that were backed by mafia families.
Both have been placed on leave by the NBA.
“We are in the process of reviewing the federal indictments announced today, ” an NBA statement read. “Terry Rozier and Chauncey Billups are being placed on immediate leave from their teams, and we will continue to cooperate with the relevant authorities.
“We take these allegations with the utmost seriousness, and the integrity of our game remains our top priority.”
The charges are related to two major cases, one involving sports betting and the second involving rigged poker games, US attorney Joseph Nocella Jnr 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, Mr Nocella said.
He called it “one of the most brazen sports corruption schemes since online sports betting became widely legalised in the United States”.
The second case involves 31 defendants in a nationwide scheme to rig illegal poker games, Mr 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.
Sky Sports News has contacted the NBA, Miami Heat and the Portland Trail Blazers for comment.
NBA players accused of departing games early to fulfil bets
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 others he was planning to leave the game early with a “supposed injury”, allowing others to place wagers that raked in thousands of dollars, Ms Tisch said.
The charges against 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 “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.
The NBA has investigated Rozier previously and is said to still be looking into the actions of former Detroit player Malik Beasley.
Rozier was in kit 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 did not immediately comment on the arrest.
Rozier’s lawyer, Jim 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.
The case was brought by the US attorney’s office in Brooklyn that previously prosecuted ex-NBA player Jontay Porter.
The former Toronto Raptors centre 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.
Sophisticated technology used in rigged poker games
Billups was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame last year.
The head coach was charged with helping to rig poker games to defraud unknowing players who were lured to the games with the promise of playing against celebrities, officials.
The defendants allegedly employed sophisticated technology, including fraudulent card shufflers and X-ray tables.
That scheme involved several organised crime families in New York, who also used extortion and robbery to collect unpaid debts and laundered some of the proceeds through cryptocurrency and other means, according to prosecutors.
While the arrests stemmed from two separate indictments, a handful of defendants were charged in both cases.
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