Federal agents arrested more than 30 people across 11 states in twin investigations into rigged high-stakes poker games and illegal NBA betting allegedly backed by the Bonanno, Gambino, Genovese and Lucchese crime families. Hall of Famer Chauncey Billups and Heat guard Terry Rozier were charged, and the NBA was later pressed by a Senate committee over its gambling safeguards.
FBI Director Kash Patel announced the takedown at a news conference, calling the fraud "mind-boggling" and describing a "criminal enterprise that envelops both the NBA and La Cosa Nostra." The charges ranged from wire fraud and money laundering to extortion, robbery and illegal gambling, with officials saying the schemes involved tens of millions of dollars in ill-gotten gains over a multi-year investigation dubbed "Nothing But Net."
The probe unraveled two rackets. In the poker scheme, prosecutors say members and associates of the four crime families rigged high-stakes games in Manhattan, Las Vegas, Miami and the Hamptons using sophisticated cheating technology: secretly altered shuffling machines that could read the deck and predict the best hand, an X-ray table that could read cards face down, poker chip tray analyzers with hidden cameras, and special contact lenses or glasses for pre-marked cards. An off-site operator received the card information and relayed it by phone to a confederate at the table — the "quarterback" — who secretly signaled the rest of the cheating team. The operation netted more than $7 million over six years.
Billups, the Portland Trail Blazers head coach and Hall of Fame point guard, was what prosecutors called a "Face Card" — a celebrity used to attract wealthy gamblers to the rigged games — and played on the "Cheating Team." In texts included in court documents, the orchestrators realized during an April 2019 game in Las Vegas that Billups was winning too many improbable hands; the streak would draw suspicion, so Billups had to start losing on purpose to keep the enterprise raking in cash.
The sports-betting scheme targeted NBA games. Rozier, then with the Charlotte Hornets, allegedly tipped off bettors that he planned to leave a game early with a supposed injury; more than $200,000 was wagered on his statistical unders. NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch said that "in some instances, players altered their performance or took themselves out of games to make sure that those bets paid out." Former NBA player Damon Jones was also among those arrested. Rozier's attorney, Jim Trusty, criticized the FBI's handling of the arrest as more spectacle than justice.
The NBA placed both Billups and Rozier on leave and pledged cooperation while emphasizing game integrity. The scandal — echoing the 2024 Jontay Porter case, in which the former Raptors center manipulated prop bets and pleaded guilty to wire fraud — prompted a Senate committee to press the league on its gambling safeguards, raising questions about how much the NBA's embrace of sports betting has exposed the game to exactly this kind of corruption.