Inside the rigged poker games in NBA gambling scandal

(NewsNation) — Prosecutors revealed more details about a massive poker scheme that utilized “cheating technology" and led to the indictment of more than 30 people, including Portland Trail Blazers coach Chauncey Billups and Miami Heat player Terry Rozier. 

Government attorneys laid out how unknowing victims were scammed out of thousands in rigged poker games such as "Texas Hold’em" in places including Manhattan, Las Vegas and Miami.

These schemes happened in part with "wireless cheating technology," complex communication and violence, filings stated.

They also occurred with the help of sports stars like Billups and former NBA assistant coach Damon Jones who were the “Face Cards” that attracted victims to the games because of their status as former professional athletes, filings stated. 

These former athletes would then be part of a larger "cheating team" that carried out the scam in underground poker games.  

These teams often used “preexisting illegal gambling operations and the personnel of those operations” to run the rigged games, according to the filings. 

How did the rigged poker games work?  

In an unmanipulated game, the dealer uses an automatic shuffling machine to shuffle the cards randomly before dealing them to all the players in a particular order, but in the rigged games, those machines were “secretly altered,” court filings stated. 

The rigged machines were programmed to “read the cards in the deck, predict which player at the table had the best poker hand, and relay that information via 3 interstate wires to an off-site operator.” 

The off-site operator then relayed the information with a cellphone back to a member of the cheating team who was playing at the table who was referred to as the “Quarterback” or “Driver.” 

That player then secretly signaled this information to other members of the cheating team who were sitting at the table. The group then worked together to make sure victims couldn’t win.

Other methods used by cheating teams included using a poker chip tray analyzer, which secretly read cards using hidden cameras, an X-ray table that could read cards face down on the table, and special contact lenses or eyeglasses that could read pre-marked cards, the filings stated. 

Prosecutors described an April 2019 ring where Billups and several others on the cheating team organized and participated in rigged poker games in Las Vegas, Nevada, using a rigged shuffling machine.

Text messages between the group showed a discussion of Billups needing to lose purposefully to avoid suspicion of cheating. The messages noted that one of the victims had “acted like he wanted Chauncey to have his money” because he was “star struck” by Billups. 

Eventually, the cheating team defrauded victims of at least $50,000, court filings stated.

Defendants committed acts of violence to further the scheme

Prosecutors said some of the defendants committed acts of violence, including assault, extortion and robbery, to ensure the repayment of debts and continued success of the scheme. 

In one 2022 incident, a defendant threatened and then punched and assaulted a victim who was unable to pay, prosecutors stated. 

In another case in 2023, a group of defendants robbed a victim who had a rigged shuffling machine.

Prosecutors also described a violent “brawl” that occurred in October 2023 after one of the defendants tried to break off from the group and start his own gambling establishment. 

Several people “stormed” the new gambling establishment with weapons and assaulted the individual who tried to break off, court filings stated. 

Money laundering through shell companies

The defendants went to great lengths to launder the proceeds of their scheme in order to evade detection, prosecutors stated.

One defendant was the principal launderer and would put the proceeds through various shell companies and through cryptocurrency, filings stated. This individual had “quick access to large amounts of cash that he supplied to co-conspirators to help them launder the proceeds of their crimes,” they said.