Shocking news broke Thursday morning as Portland Trail Blazers head coach Chauncey Billups and Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier were arrested as part of a federal investigation into illegal sports betting activities.
Billups, a Hall of Famer, was arrested and charged for being part of an illegal poker scheme that had links to organized crimes, according to the New York Post.
Per the Post, Billups “Has been charged with partaking in an alleged illegal poker ring tied to the Bonano, Genovese and Columbo crime families.”
He was one of 31 people arrested across the country for being involved with games that took place in Manhattan, the Hamptons in Long Island and Las Vegas, reported the Post.
Rozier has been under investigation for roughly two years, when his play during a game in 2023 came under question. He was playing with the Charlotte Hornets at that time. However, after the NBA looked into the unusual betting activity around his play during the game in question, no violation was found.
The game under scrutiny took place on March 23, 2023 against the Pelicans. In that game, Rozier played the first 9:36 and then left due to a foot issue. That ended up being his final game of the season.
His stats were nothing to rave about (5 points, 4 rebounds, 2 assists and 1 steal); however, a user on X posted they had been alerted that Rozier would leave the game early and unusual betting activity around Rozier in the game had been found.
Rozier had met with the NBA and the FBI multiple times during 2023 about the game but nothing much resulted from it at the time.
“In March 2023, the NBA was alerted to unusual betting activity related to Terry Rozier’s performance in a game between Charlotte and New Orleans,” said NBA spokesman Mike Bass earlier this year.
“The league conducted an investigation and did not find a violation of NBA rules. 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.”
The arrests come on the heels of NBA Commissioner Adam Silver’s comments on the Pat McAfee show this week regarding how the NBA is trying to work on the betting issues with their sports betting partners.
“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 on Tuesday.
