On October 23, the FBI announced arrests of over 30 individuals in what prosecutors described as two massive illegal gambling operations. Portland Trail Blazers head coach Chauncey Billups, Miami Heat and former Charlotte Hornets guard Terry Rozier, and former NBA player Damon Jones were three of the individuals arrested in connection with schemes allegedly involving insider sports betting and mafia-backed illegal poker games. Unfortunately, these activities likely represent just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to illegal gambling in the United States.
Illegal Sports Betting Scheme: The FBI alleges in the sports betting scheme that Rozier and others passed confidential insider information to organized crime groups to facilitate wagers on NBA games. In one documented case from March 2023, Rozier, then playing for the Charlotte Hornets, allegedly informed an associate he would leave a game early with a fake injury, enabling bettors to place over $200,000 in wagers that generated tens of thousands in profits.
“As set forth in the indictment, between December 2022 and March 2024, the defendants and their associates obtained and misused non-public information about upcoming NBA games to place fraudulent sports wagers for profit and then laundered the proceeds,” the FBI’s press release states. “The conspirators allegedly obtained insider information from several NBA players and coaches, including Rozier and Jones, and distributed that information through a network of bettors. These bettors placed wagers through online sportsbooks and retail betting outlets, falsely representing that their wagers complied with the betting companies’ rules—which included, as relevant here, not betting on non-public information or using straw bettors—while concealing that their wagers were based on confidential team information.”
Illegal Poker Game Scheme: The FBI alleges in the poker game scheme that the perpetrators, including members of three major organized crime families, employed sophisticated cheating technology including X-ray tables, special contact lenses capable of reading pre-marked cards, and custom shuffling machines that could read card order. Well-known current and former NBA players and former professional athletes, including Billups and Jones, acted as “Face Cards” to “lure unsuspecting victims to high-stakes poker games.”
“For years, these individuals allegedly hosted illegal poker games where they used sophisticated technology and enlisted current and former NBA players to cheat people out of millions of dollars,” according to the FBI’s press release. “This complex scheme was so far reaching that it included members from four of the organized crime families, and when people refused to pay because they were cheated, these defendants did what organized crime has always done: they used threats, intimidation, and violence.”
The Tip of the Iceberg: Since the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in 2018 allowing states to legalize and regulate sports betting, the gambling industry has exploded. What we’re witnessing is the inevitable result of normalizing an industry built on exploitation and addiction. According to a CNN report in June 2024, at least 23 professional players or coaches had been suspended or permanently banned from their leagues for sports betting violations since 2018, and these are only the cases that have been discovered.
Practically every television broadcast now features betting odds and parlay promotions. Sports betting commercials are unrelenting and offer hundreds of dollars as an enticement to new sports wagering platform users. Our culture has systematically normalized an industry that destroys families, fuels addiction, and—as this case demonstrates—provides fertile ground for corruption at the highest levels of professional sports.
FBI Director Kash Patel and the many law enforcement agencies and personnel involved in these operations deserve credit for this investigation, but law enforcement cannot solve a problem that society has so enthusiastically embraced. Until our culture recognizes gambling for what it truly is—an exploitative industry that preys on human weakness and breeds corruption—we will be unwilling and unable to correct it.