In a luxury $22m (£16.5m) townhouse in New York’s Greenwich Village, the poker game was in full swing.
As the cards whizzed through the electric shufflers, deep-pocketed players pinched themselves as they prepared to play Texas hold’em at an exclusive table with their basketball heroes.
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Little did they know they were “fish” who had been reeled into a sophisticated, rigged poker scheme allegedly run by four New York crime families involving x-ray tables, fraudulent shuffling machines and paid-off sports stars.
Details of the alleged rigged poker games, which are said to have taken place in New York, Las Vegas and Miami, were revealed on Thursday as more than 30 people were charged in connection with two federal gambling investigations as a result of “Operation Royal Flush”.
Chauncey Billups, an NBA Hall of Fame player and head coach of the Portland Trail Blazers, and Terry Rozier, a guard with the Miami Heat, were among those indicted as part of the wide-spread investigation which spanned 11 states.
The two schemes – one of them focused on insider sports betting and another that rigged poker games nationwide – spanned years and involved tens of millions of dollars in illicit gains from wire fraud, money laundering, extortion and gambling, Kash Patel, the FBI director, said at a press conference.
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Billups was charged in a case of helping to rig poker games to defraud unknowing players who were lured to the games with the promise of playing against celebrities, known as “faces,” officials said.
These two images show an X-ray poker table that the department of justice says was employed by conspirators in the case – US Department of Justice
In two luxury Manhattan homes, including one that was once rented by Kylie Jenner in the West Village, the defendants allegedly used sophisticated technology, to read and predict their victims’ hands, and ensure their victims lost.
Card shuffling machines that appeared to be random were apparently rigged with tech to read the playing cards, and generating a prediction of which player had the best hand.
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This information was sent through interstate wires to an off-site “operator” who would message one of the players, who was referred to as the “quarterback” or “driver” with the information. The player would then use secret signals, such as tapping certain chips or his chin to signal to other cheating players who had the best hand.
Some poker chip trays had hidden cameras that could read the cards on the table. The cards also sometimes had markings that were visible only to people wearing specially designed contact lenses or sunglasses.
The scheme, which dates back to 2019, also involved four of the five major New York organised crime families: Bonano, Gambino, Lucchese and Genovese, which took a cut of the profits, according to prosecutors.
They are accused of using extortion and robbery to collect unpaid debts and laundering proceeds through cryptocurrency and other means.
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The rigged card shuffling machines were so integral to the criminal scheme that several defendants are accused of carrying out a gunpoint robbery to steal a specific model of the machine from a victim.
Mafia members allegedly used pre-existing illegal gambling infrastructure to organise the games.
A dismantled shuffling machine which was allegedly rigged
The crime families provided security for the rigged poker sessions, while former professional NBA players Billups and Damon Jones, were known as “face cards”. They were used to “lure” wealthy victims into playing in exchange for a cut of the profits, according to court documents.
“What the victims, the fish, didn’t know is that everybody else at the poker game, from the dealers, to the players, including the face cards, were in on the scheme,” Joseph Nocella Jr, the US attorney for the Eastern District of New York, said.
Credit: YouTube / @WKYCChannel3
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Billups, 49, who is in his fifth year as Portland’s head coach, played for seven teams during his NBA career and won a championship with the Detroit Pistons in 2004, when he was named Most Valuable Player of the NBA Finals.
The defendants are accused of using technology to steal more than $7m (£5.3m) from victims in the New York area, Mr Nocella said.
One victim, who was referred to as John Doe in the indictment, was allegedly defrauded out of around $1.8m (£1.4m) during rigged poker games in Midtown Manhattan in June and July 2023.
In June 2023, several of the defendants allegedly participated in rigged games in East Hampton, where they defrauded two victims of at least $46,500 (£35,000) and $105,000 (£79,000).
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When players failed to repay the debts they accrued from the poker games, the defendants used extortion and threats of violence to get their money, prosecutors said.
In a separate indictment centred on sports betting, Rozier was one of several NBA insiders who allegedly provided information about upcoming games to their criminal partners, who in turn used straw bettors to place multiple bets based on the tips.
The sports-betting scheme allegedly spanned from December 2022 through March 2024, during which time Rozier and Jones used secret information about the NBA, which they got through their connections and friendships, to place bets on games, officials claim.
In one case from March 2023, investigators claimed that Rozier told his conspirators he would leave a game early with a supposed injury, allowing them to place more than $200,000 (£150,000) in bets that he would not reach his expected statistical totals for the game. He was arrested on Thursday morning at a hotel in Orlando, Florida.
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Rozier’s lawyer, James Trusty, claimed prosecutors “appear to be taking the word of spectacularly incredible sources rather than relying on actual evidence of wrongdoing. Terry was cleared by the NBA and these prosecutors revived that non-case.”
Mr Nocella called the alleged crimes “one of the most brazen sports corruption schemes since online sports betting became widely legalised in the United States”.
“This is the insider trading saga for the NBA,” Mr Patel said.
“The fraud is mind-boggling,” he added.
Both Billups and Rozier have been placed on leave from their teams, the NBA said in a statement.
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Billups, Rozier and former Cleveland Cavaliers assistant Jones were all arrested on Thursday in connection with the federal investigation.
