Portland Trail Blazers coach Chauncey Billups, Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier and former NBA player Damon Jones were three of more than 30 people arrested by the FBI on Thursday morning as part of an extensive federal grand jury investigation into illegal sports betting and gambling split across two cases.
The NBA released a statement on Thursday afternoon that both Rozier and Billups were being placed on “immediate leave” from the Heat and Blazers, respectively.
“We are in the process of reviewing the federal indictments announced today,” the league said. “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.”
Billups and Jones are being charged for allegedly taking part in illegal high-stakes poker games operated by organized crime, while Rozier was arrested in connection with a sports betting ring involving current and former NBA players trading inside, non-public information largely about injuries and illnesses.
“The FBI led a coordinated takedown across 11 states to arrest over 30 individuals today in this case, which is very much ongoing,” FBI director Kash Patel said in. Thursday press briefing. “Not only did we crack into the fraud that these perpetrators committed on the grand stage of the NBA, we also entered an executed a system of justice against [La Casa Nostra].”
U.S. attorney Joseph Nocella shared that the sports betting scheme involving Rozier, Jones and four others took place from December 2022 to March 2024 and involved seven NBA games:
The information obtained by the likes of Rozier and Jones was allegedly distributed to a network of bettors that placed wagers worth hundreds of thousands of dollars at online sportsbooks and in person at casinos.
Rozier has been implicated for the Hornets-Pelicans game, in which he pulled himself early from the contest, a move that was allegedly preplanned. Law enforcement claims $200,000 was wagered across a variety of sportsbooks on his prop bet unders.
Jones is implicated for his role in relaying inside information on the two Lakers games. This probe, “Operation Nothing But Bet,” is related to the Jontay Porter case. Two of the defendants — neither Rozier nor Jones — allegedly threatened Porter, forcing him to remain involved in the scheme.
The FBI and NBA were looking into Porter, who was banned from the NBA in 2024, for his role in a sports betting scandal focused on his prop bets. Porter ended up being one of three men to plead guilty in the case; he is currently awaiting sentancing.
“The non-public information included when specific players would be sitting out future games, or when they would pull themselves out early for purported injuries or illnesses,” Nocella explained. “They relied on corrupt individuals, including Jones and Rozier. They also misused information through longstanding friendships they had with NBA players and coaches. And in at least one instance, they got their information by threatening a current player, Porter, because of his pre-existing gambling debts.”
The six defendants in the sports betting case, including Rozier and Jones, are being charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering. Billups and Jones will be charged similarly as part of the rigged poker games indictment that was tied to La Cosa Nostra, organized crime families in New York.
“The mafia … had preexisting control over non-rigged, illegal poker games around New York City,” Nocella shared. “As a result, they also became involved in the rigged poker games, helping to organize the games and taking a cut of the proceedings — and working to enforce the collection of debts.”
Nocella detailed how the games targeted “fish” — high-net worth individuals — to participate in illegal poker games that utilized wireless technology allowing its hosts to cheat. Among the tools used were rigged shuffle machines, X-ray tables that could read cards face down and special contact lenses and eyeglasses that could read premarked cards. Individuals worked in concert with others monitoring the poker games off site, sending signals to the players at the table.
Billups and Jones were allegedly among the “face cards” — celebrity players helping lure the “fish” into the scheme.
Rozier was arrested at a hotel in Orlando, Florida, on Thursday morning and will appear at federal court in Orlando later in the day. The Heat were in town playing the Orlando Magic on Wednesday, a game in which Rozier did not participate as a coach’s decision. Billups was arrested in Portland, Oregon, as the Blazers are between home games. He will appear at federal court in Portland later Thursday. Both men set to be arraigned in Brooklyn at a future date.
NBA commissioner Adam Silver, appearing Tuesday on “The Pat McAfee Show,” called for additional regulations to sports betting as a means of reducing potential game manipulation.
“We’ve asked some of our partners to pull back some of the prop bets, especially when they’re on two-way players, guys who don’t have the same stake in the competition, where it’s too easy to manipulate something, which seems otherwise small and inconsequential to the overall score,” said Silver, who was the first major sports commissioner in the United States to support sports betting legislation. “We’re trying to put in place — learning as we go and working with the betting companies — some additional control to prevent some of that manipulation.”
Sportsbooks in multiple states flagged unusual in betting activity in relation to Rozier’s statistical props prior to a game between the Hornets and Pelicans on March 23, 2023. In the span of 46 minutes, there were 30 wagers from a professional sports bettor that totaled $13,759 on the under for Rozier’s points, rebounds and assists, which caused several sportsbooks to close down prop betting on his statistics.
Rozier, who was on the Hornets at the time, played just 10 minutes before leaving the contest due to a foot injury.
Rozier’s attorney, Jim Trusty, previously told ESPN that Rozier met with FBI and NBA officials on multiple occasions in 2023 when the initial investigation began. Rozier maintained his innocence in relation to the case, previously getting cleared through an NBA probe.
“The league conducted an investigation and did not find a violation of NBA rules,” NBA spokesman Mike Bass said in January 2025. “We are now aware of an investigation by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York related to this matter and have been cooperating with that investigation.”
Trusty stated Thursday that Rozier’s arrest came as a surprise considering his client believed he was cooperating with law enforcement.
“They characterized Terry as a subject, not a target, but at 6 a.m. this morning, they called to tell me FBI agents were trying to arrest him in a hotel,” Trusty told Pablo Torre. “It is unfortunate that, instead of allowing him to self surrender, they opted for a photo op. They wanted the misplaced glory of embarrassing a professional athlete with a perp walk. That tells you a lot about the motivations in this case. They appear to be taking the word of spectacularly in-credible sources rather than relying on actual evidence of wrongdoing. Terry was cleared by the NBA and these prosecutors revived that non-case. Terry is not a gambler, but he is not afraid of a fight, and he looks forward to winning this fight.”
Rozier never played for the Hornets again following that 2023 game; he was traded that season to the Heat in January 2024. The following season, he averaged 10.6 points, 3.7 rebounds and 2.6 assists in 64 games with Miami.
