On Thursday, Oct. 23, “more than 30 people were indicted on Thursday in a case involving insider bets on basketball games and poker games rigged by Mafia families” as reported by The New York Times.
According to the AP News, Portland Trailblazers coach Chauncey Billups was charged with taking part in a conspiracy to rig high-stakes card games connected to the La Cosa Nostra crime family, which allegedly swindled unsuspecting gamblers out of more than $7 million.
In a separate case, Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier was accused of using confidential player information to place and profit from bets on NBA games. The news channel further reports that “[t]he two indictments unsealed in New York create a massive cloud for the NBA — which opened its season this week — and show how certain types of wagers are vulnerable to massive fraud in the growing, multibillion-dollar legal sports-betting industry.”
“…[I]ndividuals such as Chauncey Bilips, Damon Jones and Terry Rosier were taken into custody today. Former and current NBA coaches,” FBI Director Kash Patel stated on Oct. 24.
Patel further stated that, “[W]hat you don’t know is that this is an illegal gambling operation and sports rigging operation that spanned the course of years. The FBI coordinated a takedown across 11 states to arrest over 30 individuals today responsible for this case, which is very much ongoing.”
According to Patel, the charges involve “wire fraud, money laundering, extortion, robbery, illegal gambling.”
“We take these allegations with the utmost seriousness, and the integrity of our game remains our top priority,” the NBA said in a statement with AP news.
According to a league memo obtained by ESPN, the NBA is reconsidering its measures on legal sports betting, its regulations, what types of bets should be allowed and the best ways to protect players from the “dire risks that gambling can impose upon their careers and livelihoods.”
The memo further stated that, “[W]ith sports betting now occupying such a significant part of the current sports landscape, every effort must be made to ensure that players, coaches and other NBA personnel are fully aware of the dire risks that gambling can impose upon their careers and livelihoods; that our injury disclosure rules are appropriate; and that players are protected from harassment from bettors.”
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