NBA's Chauncey Billups, Terry Rozier among dozens arrested in sweeping illegal gambling probe

NEW YORK -Chauncey Billups, an NBA Hall of Fame player and head coach of the Portland Trail Blazers, and Terry Rozier, a guard with the Miami Heat, are among more than 30 people charged on Thursday in connection with two separate but related federal gambling investigations that involved the league and organized crime.

The schemes - one of them focused on insider sports betting and another that rigged poker games nationwide - spanned years and involved tens of millions of dollars in illicit gains from wire fraud, money laundering, extortion and gambling, FBI Director Kash Patel said at a press conference in Brooklyn on Thursday.

Rozier was one of several National Basketball Association insiders who provided non-public information about how they would perform to their criminal partners, who in turn used straw bettors to place multiple bets based on the tips, authorities said.

In March 2023, for instance, Rozier told associates in advance he would leave a game early with a supposed injury, allowing them to profit when he did not reach his expected statistical totals for the game, officials said.

"This is the insider trading saga for the NBA," Patel said.

Billups was charged in a separate case with helping to rig poker games to defraud unknowing players who were lured to the games with the promise of playing against celebrities, officials said. The defendants employed sophisticated technology, including fraudulent card shufflers and x-ray tables.

That scheme also involved the Bonano, Gambino, Lucchese and Genovese organized crime families in New York, which took a cut of the profits, used extortion and robbery to collect unpaid debts and laundered proceeds through cryptocurrency and other means, according to prosecutors.

While the