The FBI is holding a press conference right now on the details around this morning's sports gambling bust.
Here are some of the highlights:
1. Current and former NBA players and coaches Chauncey Billups, Terry Rozier, and Damon Jones have been arrested.
2. This was an illegal gambling and sports rigging operation that spanned years across 11 states. In total, 30 individuals have been arrested (13 mafia members).
3. The case involves La Cosa Nostra (the Italian mafia).
4. Charges include illegal gambling, wire fraud, and extortion.
5. There are two separate indictments. The first involves six defendants accused of participating in a sports corruption scheme that exploited insider information involving NBA players and teams. The defendants leveraged their connections to place prop bets based on confidential insider information, winning tens of thousands of dollars per bet.
The second indictment involves 31 defendants charged with participating in a nationwide scheme to rig illegal poker games. The FBI says they used high-tech cheating technology to steal millions of dollars from victims in underground poker games that were secretly fixed.
6. The two cases are separate, but there are three overlapping defendants, including former NBA player and coach Damon Jones.
7. The FBI says that NBA player Terry Rozier told the defendants that he was going to leave a game early on March 23, 2023, with an injury. The defendants then placed more than $200,000 of wagers on the unders for his prop bets, with Rozier leaving the game after nine minutes. Those bets paid out tens of thousands of dollars in profits, and the defendants and Rozier counted the money at his house.
8 The FBI says that former Raptors player Jontay Porter was threatened to participate in the sports gambling scheme because of his gambling debts.
9. Teams that were bet on during the sports gambling scheme include the Charlotte Hornets, Portland Trail Blazers, Los Angeles Lakers, and the Toronto Raptors.
10. The rigged poker games occurred in the Hamptons, Miami, Las Vegas, and Manhattan.
11. The poker scheme targeted victims who were lured to participate in rigged poker games by the chance to play alongside former professional athletes. These athletes included Chauncey Billups and Damon Jones.
12. The FBI says that the defendants utilized altered shuffling machines to read the cards in the deck and then relayed that information to an off-site operator. The offsite operator — known as the "quarterback" — then sent that information to someone at the table.
13. The FBI also says that the defendants utilized other cheating technologies, including poker chip trays that read cards through hidden cameras, special contact lenses and glasses that could read marked cards, and x-ray poker tables that could read cards face down.
14. The FBI says that the defendants robbed a victim at gunpoint to acquire a rigged shuffling machine.
15. The sports gambling investigation is called "Operation Nothing But Net," while the poker investigation is called "Operation Royal Flush."
16. The FBI has been working on this investigation for four years, with victims losing at least $7 million.
17. One specific victim lost at least $1.8 million.
18. The FBI reviewed thousands of hours of video evidence and executed more than two dozen search warrants.
These are just accusations at this point. I am just pointing out details from the FBI's investigation.
