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Two former NBA players turned coaches, one of whom is a Hall of Famer, were arrested Thursday after alleged involvement in a rigged poker scheme in which members of the La Cosa Nostra crime families were also listed as defendants.
Chauncey Billups and Damon Jones, the latter of whom is also a defendant in the sports betting case with Terry Rozier, were charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering.
The two are alleged to have knowingly taken part in rigged poker games, being dubbed “face cards,” who the Department of Justice said were “members of the Cheating Teams and received a portion of the criminal proceeds in exchange for their participation in the scheme.”
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Chauncey Billups and Damon Jones were arrested on Thursday as part of an illegal poker scheme. (Vincent Carchietta/Imagn Images; Bill Frakes/Sports Illustrated via Getty Images)
“Billups and Jones, in particular… were utilized to attract victims to the games because of their status as former professional athletes,” the DOJ said.
The scheme resulted in victims losing at least $7.15 million dating back to April 2019, according to the Department of Justice.
With successful NBA careers, though, both playing and on the sidelines, one may wonder what could lead them to be allegedly wrapped up in such schemes.
“Well, they’re risk-takers. Athletes like that, they’ve got a lot of adrenaline,” Meyer Lansky II, the famous mobster’s grandson, speculated in a Fox News Digital in a recent interview. “They think they can not only have millions to be paid by a team, but they can make more with their gambling, too. Or they have an addiction to gambling. There’s a lot of people like that. They just want to get involved with that. Maybe they like the affiliation with the people that are in charge of that, or behind those gambling setups and situations again.”
Portland Trail Blazers head coach Chauncey Billups watches from the sideline during the first half against the San Antonio Spurs at Moda Center in Portland, Oregon, on April 6, 2025. (Soobum Im/Imagn Images)
WHO ARE CHAUNCEY BILLUPS, TERRY ROZIER AND DAMON JONES? NBA SUBJECTS ARRESTED IN ILLEGAL GAMBLING PROBE
Lansky added that there is a potential sense of power from the athletes themselves.
“I think anybody that gets an extraordinary amount of money, and they’ve got a lot of fans behind them, yeah, they can get to the point where they’re just blind to ‘Nothing can happen to me. Why don’t I just do this?’ I do think that with any background, not just sports. It’s a powerful thing. Money and power and fame, it takes over sometimes,” he said.
As for the mafia, “sports was always a big thing,” according to Lansky.
“It was pretty easy to fix. It’s always been beneficial…” he said. “Yeah, I think it’s pretty easy to access that. You can do it because, if you’re in the casinos, you have surveillance and people watching, and that’s a lot riskier than it would be for sports betting.”
With the legalization of gambling throughout the country, it is much easier for athletes to get involved in harming the integrity of the game. However, Lansky believes that illegal ties and schemes will always occur for multiple reasons.
Portland Trail Blazers coach Chauncey Billups leaves the Mark O. Hatfield U.S. Courthouse after a hearing following his arrest on federal gambling charges in Portland, Oregon, U.S., Oct. 23, 2025. (John Rudoff/Reuters)
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“Protection — you don’t have to come up with the front money, you place it with a bookie a lot of times. They’ll look for you if you don’t pay up, but you know, reasons like that, they have great control and great power. They have different ways they do things with somebody. They’re influential themselves when they talk to maybe a player. There’s an affiliation with the mafia and famous people and sports people, they like that connection sometimes. It gives them something. It’s a strong entity in our society, so that’s one of the reasons. They trust them, too.”
Lansky will release a book, “The Lansky Legacy,” on Tuesday, where he is a co-author who tells “the truth” about his grandfather and nixes “a lot of misconceptions” about him.
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