BREAKING: CHAUNCEY BILLUPS ARRESTED BY FBI FOR ILLEGAL GAMBLING (20 Viewers)

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SlyPokerDog said:
No, it's things like this that will ultimately make this a RICO case.

Doesn't matter that the team was already losing or tanking. Sitting our top 4 scorers was an extreme outlier.

Seriously, someone will find what the betting line was before and after that information became public, and it will be drastic.
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Insider information is insider information, and it’s not public knowledge no matter how the public perceives things.
 
SlyPokerDog said:
Federal prosecutors say Portland Trail Blazers coach Chauncey Billups participated in rigged poker games, using his celebrity status to attract gamblers to play in games fixed by organized crime figures.



Billups, 49, will not coach the Blazers in the near future, with the NBA on Thursday saying he’d been placed on “immediate leave” from the team.




Billups was among more than 30 people indicted Thursday in two separate cases involving NBA figures, some of whom played a role in both cases. The second case does not directly name Billups but suggests someone who matches his credentials provided insider information that enabled others to bet against the Blazers during a basketball game in 2023.



That’s a very significant allegation for the NBA. It suggests the Blazers coach may have shared information from his job leading the team and that information helped gamblers win their bets, potentially undermining the integrity of competition in the league.



Prosecutors said Billups was due to be arraigned Thursday afternoon in Portland. He’s accused of money laundering and wire fraud conspiracy in the alleged poker scheme.

At a Thursday morning news conference in Brooklyn, Interim U.S. Attorney Joseph Nocella said Mafia organizations attracted gamblers, whom they called “fish,” to play in rigged poker games involving former pro athletes whom they called “face cards.” Nocella said Billups was among the “face cards” who played in the games, which allegedly defrauded unknowing players out of tens of millions of dollars.



Such “face cards” allegedly “received a portion of the criminal proceeds in exchange for their participation,” according to the unsealed indictment.



“My message to the defendants who’ve been rounded up today is this: Your winning streak has ended. Your luck has run out,” Nocella said. “Violating the law is a losing proposition and you can bet on that.”



Billups and others allegedly organized and participated in a rigged game in Las Vegas around April 2019, according to the indictment. They allegedly used a rigged shuffling machine to defraud other players of at least $50,000.



The Blazers hired Billups, a former player and NBA champion with the Detroit Pistons, as their head coach in 2021.



The allegations jeopardize Billups’ future in the NBA, which has grown increasingly sensitive about the impact of gambling on the sport. Prosecutors said the league cooperated in the multiyear investigation that triggered Thursday’s indictments.



“We are in the process of reviewing the federal indictments announced today,” the NBA announced in a statement. Billups has been placed on “immediate leave,” the statement said, “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 was arrested about 5 a.m. Thursday at his home in Lake Oswego, according to his lawyer, Chris Heywood. FBI agents took him to the Portland FBI office and then to the Mark O. Hatfield U.S. Courthouse in downtown Portland, where he’s being held until his 1:30 p.m. court appearance.



Heywood declined further comment until after the court appearance.



Multiple calls and text messages from The Oregonian/OregonLive to the Blazers and Billups’ agent, Andy Miller, were not immediately returned Thursday morning.



Billups coached the Trail Blazers in their season-opening game Wednesday night, a narrow loss to the Minnesota Timberwolves at the Moda Center in Portland.



Assistant coach Tiago Splitter will lead the Blazers in the interim, according to reports



Prosecutors say the people who organized the poker games used a rigged shuffling machine that had been altered to read the cards and predict which players had the best hands. They then used wireless technology to notify a conspirator at the table, “the quarterback,” and tell that person who had the best hand.



Organizers of the rigged games allegedly used X-rays, special glasses and other tools to identify playing cards, even when they were face down.



The rigged poker games allegedly took place in New York, Las Vegas and Miami. It’s not clear from the indictment if Billups played in all those cities. Most often, the gamblers were playing Texas Hold ‘em.



A prosecutorial memo alleges that Billups and other “face cards” participating in the rigged poker games received a portion of the proceeds from the scheme. The memo alleges one of the other defendants, Sophia Wei, wired Billups $50,000 following a rigged game in late October 2020 in which he participated.



In electronic messages from April 9, 2019, the alleged conspirators were purportedly concerned that Billups and another defendant had won too many improbable hands. They allegedly suggested having Billups and another player deliberately lose to deflect suspicion.



Allegations of cheating involving Billups became public in 2023, although the indictment does not reference those specific claims.



A professional poker player who said he didn’t participate in the game discussed it on a podcast two years ago, saying he thought it happened in 2019. The player, Matt Berkey, said the game began in Los Angeles and moved to Las Vegas and “was built around” Billups.



Berkey said he chose not to play in the game out of concern that it was “not on the up and up.” Berkey said he had friends who played in the game and “only the pros are losing.”



“It was basically confirmed amongst all of the pros that the game was cheated, but there’s just no recourse,” Berkey alleged. " … Well it’s tough too whenever you’re dealing with somebody like, high profile like that, because they carry a lot of weight and hold a lot of power, so all you can do is like, kind of unite together and threaten to publicly out him or extort him in some sort of capacity, in which case, you know, good luck."



The separate sports-betting case announced Thursday allegedly involved current Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier and former NBA player Damon Jones, the latter of whom was also identified by federal officials as a “face card” in the alleged fixed poker games.



Prosecutors said conspirators in the sports-betting scheme used inside information on which players would sit out games and whether they would take themselves out of games for purported injuries.



The defendants allegedly used information from friendships with players and coaches.



Prosecutors said the sports-betting case involved several teams’ games, including the Trail Blazers.



Billups is not among the six defendants facing criminal charges in the sports-betting scheme. But federal prosecutors identified “Co-Conspirator 8″ as an NBA player from 1997 through 2014, who coached since 2021 and lived in Oregon -- a description that matches Billups.



“Co-Conspirator 8″ told one of the defendants in the scheme, a Missouri man named Eric Earnest, that the team would be tanking to improve its draft odds and several of the Blazers’ best players would not suit up in a game on March 24, 2023, before that information was publicly known, according to the indictment.

www.oregonlive.com

Blazers coach Chauncey Billups arrested, accused by feds of participating in rigged poker games

The NBA has placed Billups on "immediate leave" from the team.
www.oregonlive.com www.oregonlive.com
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Billups is done in basketball. The FBI doesn't spend four years investigating and then make an arrest without overwhelming evidence.
 
SlyPokerDog said:
“Co-Conspirator 8″ told one of the defendants in the scheme, a Missouri man named Eric Earnest, that the team would be tanking to improve its draft odds and several of the Blazers’ best players would not suit up in a game on March 24, 2023, before that information was publicly known, according to the indictment.
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Will there be a reprisal from the league on the team for Co-Conspirator 8’s actions?
 
BigGameDamian said:
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penguin_01.jpg
 
I bet this is just the tip of the iceberg. We will never fully know how corrupt all these leagues are. Billion dollar companies that offer games for entertainment and betting. I bet there’s tons of shady shit in all the sports. How could there not be with that much money involved.
 
I was just talking with someone who knows about things like this.

They say Chauncey royally screwed.

He might have claimed his poker winnings on his taxes, it's extremely unlikely. But there is also a component to this where he was part of a team defrauding people and he was getting a piece of that too. That would not have been claimed on his taxes. Mostly likely he didn't claim anything to the IRS and that is going to be a huge problem for him.

Also, he will have to pay to the feds the amount he defrauded plus a penalty as restitution.

There is a good chance his bank accounts and assets are now frozen, subject to forfeiture. The court will appoint someone to give him an allowance from his money.

If the feds are building a RICO case, and it sounds like it is since it's the Eastern District of NY overseeing this and the mafia is involved, he might not even have money to hire a criminal defense team.

....

Chauncey Billups is going to be that scary story the NBA will tell all the players during their rookie league orientation.
 
I know he’s only being prosecuted on poker charges , but I See lots of people on line questioning his rotations and player minutes when it was obvious player should be playing. One was about Deni when he was killing it like 5 games in a row and then played limited minutes in game after with no foul trouble or injuries. Can’t see if your tied in to the mafia and you have the power that Billups had in professional sport they wouldn’t force him to compromise an NBA game.
 
1 Eye Jack said:
I know he’s only being prosecuted on poker charges , but I See lots of people on line questioning his rotations and player minutes when it was obvious player should be playing. One was about Deni when he was killing it like 5 games in a row and then played limited minutes in game after with no foul trouble or injuries. Can’t see if your tied in to the mafia and you have the power that Billups had in professional sport they wouldn’t force him to compromise an NBA game.
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Sounds like Pete Rose all over again.

NBA didn't pay attention 40 year ago?
 
LayneStaley said:
This really isn’t a bad thing if you think about it. Maybe we are lot better than we think. Maybe CB was fucking us up on purpose with shitty game plans and rotations. Maybe we will be better now?
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Interesting view point.

We can only hope Cronin is scamming the elderly, and Camara/Sharpe/Deni/Dame are embezzling from make a wish foundation. Think how much better we will be after they are all arrested!
 
Really shocked that Billups got himself into a position he could be charged for this.

I always had a lot of respect for him and from all information available appears the rape allegations from his rookie year was just being around the wrong friends.

Makes me question much of those prior opinions.
 
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