October 23, 2025 • 36 mins
Hour 1 of today’s Clay Travis & Buck Sexton Show dives into one of the most explosive sports scandals in recent memory: a massive NBA betting and poker rigging investigation led by the FBI. Clay and Buck break down the details of a multi-year probe that resulted in over 30 arrests across 11 states, involving current and former NBA players and coaches, including Portland Trailblazers head coach Chauncey Billups, former player and coach Damon Jones, and Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier. The scandal spans illegal gambling operations, insider betting schemes, and mafia-run poker games using high-tech cheating devices like x-ray tables, contact lenses, and altered shuffling machines.
Clay explains how the FBI uncovered two interconnected cases: one involving the mob rigging high-stakes poker games with tens of millions of dollars at stake, and another exposing NBA players manipulating game performance for prop bets, such as Rozier allegedly leaving a game early after signaling insiders. The hosts discuss the staggering stupidity of risking a $26 million NBA salary for $200,000 in illicit winnings, and why legalized sports betting may actually help catch these schemes by flagging irregular wagering patterns.
The conversation expands to the broader implications for sports integrity, comparing point-shaving to insider trading, and speculating whether this is just the tip of the iceberg for organized crime in sports gambling. Clay shares personal anecdotes about being invited to high-end poker games and warns listeners that mafia involvement could be far more widespread than reported. Buck adds perspective on organized crime’s evolution from violent enforcement to sophisticated fraud schemes.
The hour also touches on cultural reactions, including Stephen A. Smith’s controversial comments linking the scandal to Donald Trump, which Clay and Buck dismiss as absurd. They emphasize that this case is about fraud, victims, and systemic corruption—not politics. The hosts predict Netflix documentaries and Hollywood movies will follow, given the cinematic nature of the scandal.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome everybody to the Thursday edition of the Clay Travis
en Buck Sexton Show, and much to discuss with all
of you. We're back from Fort Wyn, Indiana, where we
were yesterday. Who WO Land had a great time there.
Thank you all for coming out for the live show.
Thank you all for listening in the Greater Indiana area,
because of course WO WO reaches far and wide in
(00:22):
the wo's your state and it was a great time.
Thank you, Thank you. Let's look at what we have
on the docket for you all today. Why is Abigail
Spanberger having trouble in Virginia? The best answer, some people
are saying, the best answer you're gonna hear anywhere, the
most hilarious. We will get to that in a bit.
(00:43):
That Virginia governor's race, of course, very important. More updates
on Kami Mamdani in New York City and what is
going on there. Marco Rubio, the Secretary of State, talks
about his view of blowing up these Narco boats. We've
got the military going kinetic on Narco boats off the
coast of Venezuela in international waters, and we shall discuss
(01:05):
that a little more attention being paid to what's getting
in the middle of this whole shutdown fight, including the
cost of healthcare, which I really hope people will start
to pay more attention to. But we're going to dive
into something else here for a moment. I was watching
this morning, I was I was getting prepton. I flew
(01:28):
flew back home. Howd you get to the Nashville By
the way, Nashville Airport is so civilized. It's such a
nice airport, great airport. Miami Airport is trash. I love Miami,
I love Florida. Miami Airport, Miaport is trash. Anyway, Nashville
Airport lovely civilized. There's you know, practically a bluegrass band.
Actually sometimes there is a blue grass band just playing
whenever you walk around there, hanging out. But I was
(01:50):
flying back this morning and I saw this story, and
I watched some of this press conference, and I was like,
oh boy, this is like Clay Travis OutKick def Con one.
This is a thing, the NBA betting scandal. Let's just
start this off, Clay, before you take us on a
whirlwind tour of all the madness. FBI director Cash Patel
(02:10):
announcing these arrests the betting scandal the mobs involved, oh
my play one.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
As you now know, individuals such as Chauncey Billups, Damon Jones,
and Terry Rozier were taking into custody today former current
NBA players and coaches. What you don't know is that
this is an illegal gambling operation and sports rigging operation
that span the course of years. The FBI led a
coordinative takedown across eleven states to arrest over thirty individuals
(02:38):
today responsible for this case, which is very much ongoing.
The men and women that are standing up here today
worked tireless hours, days, months, and years, and the fraud
is mind boggling. It's not hundreds of dollars, it's not
thousands of dollars. It's not tens of thousands of dollars.
It's not even millions of dollars. We're talking about tens
(02:59):
of millions of dollars in fraud and theft and robbery
across a multi year investigation.
Speaker 1 (03:07):
Clay, I got to ask you, because I've already had
three people ask me to ask you, as I've asked
walking my dog on the street. What does Clay think
about the betting scandal? Clay take it away, all.
Speaker 3 (03:18):
Right, So this is like maybe my most epic wheelhouse.
I've been on Fox News all morning and uh I
watched and listened to the entire cash Ptel press conference.
So let me break it down for you twofold And
by the way, some of you may have questions about
this because I think this is going to be one
of those stories that it connects everywhere because some of
(03:43):
the details are just so crazy. So let me let
me break it down for you. Basically, the FBI announced
two different indictments which were interconnected. The first one it
feels like a movie. The mafia was rigging potoker games
and they were using some of the details here buck
(04:05):
contact lenses that could look through cards X ray machines
to know what cards were coming. There were cameras in chandeliers,
and they were using what they called face cards. These
are famous guys. Imagine they're almost all men to draw
(04:26):
in the card players, the poker players, and one of
them was Chauncey Billups. Allegedly the head coach right now
was of the Portland Trailblazers who was arrested early this morning.
So this is the mafia, which we haven't heard a
lot about for a long time. Rigging these high end
poker games. They said the amounts of lost money were
(04:50):
in the tens of millions of dollars. One guy lost
one point eight million dollars in one game. I bet
I bet that we have listeners right now who were
in these games. I bet I'm just gonna I'm just
gonna toss it out there and that some of these
high end poker games, you guys went and you thought, man,
(05:11):
I just I really had a rough night.
Speaker 4 (05:13):
You know.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
No, No, you were the fish, you were the rich guy.
Speaker 3 (05:17):
Probably almost all men that they brought in and they
rigged these games. Okay, there is a man named Damon Jones,
former coach and player in the NBA, who was charged
alongside of Chauncey Billups in this case. And then there
was he was the lynchpin to a second case which
had to do with brazen sports corruption and insider betting scandal.
(05:44):
Do we have Jess Tish because this really kind of
sums up the NBA side. She said that Terry Rosier,
an NBA basketball player right now buck for your Miami Heat,
who was previously playing for the Charlotte Hornets, he told
everybody he was going to leave a game early, left
(06:04):
after only nine minutes. There were two hundred thousand dollars
wagered on him not achieving the numbers that were prop
betted for that particular game, points, rebounds, assist, and they said.
The proceeds were then delivered to his house where they
counted the two hundred thousand dollars in cash. Now we
(06:27):
have that cut three. Listen to this and I'll give
you a take on a couple of different angles here.
Speaker 5 (06:32):
In some instances, players altered their performance or took themselves
out of games to make sure that those bets paid out.
One example occurred on March twenty third, twenty twenty three,
in Charlotte. Terry Rogier, an NBA player now with the
Miami Heat but at the time playing for the Hornets,
allegedly let others close to him know that he planned
(06:55):
to leave the game early with a supposed injury. Using
that information, the group placed more than two hundred thousand
dollars in wagers on his under statistics. Rosier exited the
game after just nine minutes, and those bets paid out,
generating tens of thousands of dollars in profit. The proceeds
(07:15):
were later delivered to his home where the group counted
their cash. As the NBA season tips off, his career
is already benched, not for injury but for integrity.
Speaker 1 (07:28):
Yeah, what is your takeaway? Buck? Can I ask? Yes?
I feel like the kid in the classroom, like I
have questions. I have questions. Okay, how much money does
this guy Rosier make? Because NBA salaries I'll tell you
twenty six point six million dollars this year. So this
is an epically dumb decision that is potentially going to
(07:49):
put in behind bars and make him basically what he
makes on an average NBA game. Thank you. This is
this is what I was wondering about because to me, okay,
so it is mind blowingly stupid, mind blowingly stupid. Forget
about the integrity and all that that's that's baked into this.
We of course, no, you shouldn't do this, but you're
gonna risk a twenty six million dollar made salary for
(08:13):
two hundred is like twenty four thousand dollars per game
right now, Buck? So he risked basically one half of
a game salary, one half of one game salary, uh,
for to lose all of it. Astonishing, astonishing, It's I
don't even know what to say. I that's one of
(08:34):
the dumbest criminal capers I've heard in a very long time.
Speaker 3 (08:38):
Yes, and and look, uh, I've got so many takes
on this. I mean, I'll hold it up for people
watching on video. I mean I was watching this press
conference live and my jaw just kept dropping the detail
of the ways that they would rig these poker games.
I mean, if you put it in a movie, a
(09:00):
lot of us would say, there's no way that could
actually be true. And listen to it. I think we
have cut four. This is us Attorney Joseph Ncella might
be mispronouncing his game. Describing the way that they would
cheat in these poker games.
Speaker 6 (09:17):
They used off the shelf shuffling machines that had been
secretly altered in order to read the cards in the deck,
predict which player at the table had the best poker hands,
and relay that information to an off site operator. Defendants
used other cheating technologies, such as poker chip tray analyzers,
which is a poker chip tray that secretly reads cards
(09:40):
using a hidden camera, special contact lenses or eyeglasses that
could read pre marked cards, and an X ray table
that could read cards face down.
Speaker 1 (09:49):
On the table, Buck.
Speaker 3 (09:52):
I mean, this is crazy stuff, and so I believe
what happened. This is my theory in general on watching
this press conference, is they became aware that mafia was
involved in rigging these games, and then based upon the
surveillance of the people who were involved in these games,
they were then able to find out that this NBA
(10:15):
rigging of individual bets may also have been going through
the lynchpin connector here, which was Damon Jones, who was
accused on both sides of this these charges. Remember when
they were bringing that preposterous Rico case against Trump in Atlanta,
and you and I were talking about how it was
absurd and Rico is really something that you think of
(10:38):
for cross state mafia illicit fraudulent activities. This to me
looks like a big Rico case, right, I mean, if
you're talking about the mo eleven six states, fixing games
in eleven different states, massive fraud, millions and millions of dollars,
And I know they've had dozen they've had dozens of
people already indicted.
Speaker 1 (10:59):
Is that right over?
Speaker 3 (11:01):
Thirty is the number of people that were indicted, One
current player, one current coach, one former coach, and player
connected to the NBA.
Speaker 1 (11:10):
So now Clay was inescapable this morning, you know, I'm
making I'm making my crack at coffee. Clay's on the TV.
I'm listening to this the radio, Clay's other talking about this.
So I have to ask you this. I'm sure others
have asked you. I haven't heard you address this one yet, though.
Do you think this is the tip of the iceberg
when it comes to this kind of fixing? Or is
(11:30):
this the worst of it? Have we already heard the
worst of it? Or is there more?
Speaker 3 (11:34):
Well, some people don't like the fact that I like
sports gambling, and you're certainly entitled to that opinion, just
like some people don't like the fact that I like bourbon.
You know, I am a center when it comes to
two things like that.
Speaker 1 (11:50):
I love to gamble, I like to have an occasional drink.
Speaker 3 (11:54):
I actually think Buck that legalized gambling makes it more
likely that we catch people for this, because the sports
books who were described as victims here, the sports books
typically catch illegue, irregular wagering patterns.
Speaker 1 (12:10):
Almost like stock market sec stuff, right like if someone
bets the farm the day before the big announcement comes out,
that's right that they can tell.
Speaker 3 (12:17):
They caught an Alabama baseball coach, for instance, because he
had an associate allegedly going, I think to a Cincinnati,
Ohio sports book and bet try to bet a ton
of money on a random college baseball game, and they
just said, well, you know this, like it's one thing.
If you walk in and you say, hey, I want
to put five grand down on the super Bowl, that's
(12:38):
not an uncommon bet.
Speaker 1 (12:40):
They wouldn't. It wouldn't raise eyebrows.
Speaker 3 (12:42):
If you walk in and you say, hey, I want
to put five thousand dollars down in a random sports
book on a random college baseball.
Speaker 1 (12:50):
Game, women's field hockey, yeah, yeah, yeah, right.
Speaker 3 (12:53):
If you suddenly walked up and you're like, hey, I'm
gonna put one hundred and k on a WNBA game,
they would be like, hmm sorry. In other words, they
put limits in place. A lot of times you can't
get down the full amount of money that you do.
Therefore you try to go around to different books. Usually
it gets flagged, and that's why the line is adjusting constantly. Right,
(13:14):
there's a market, and if tons of sharp money they
call it comes in on one side or the other,
they wonder about injuries, they wonder about things like that.
Speaker 1 (13:23):
I think what has.
Speaker 3 (13:24):
Happened, Buck, is the sunshine of legalized sports gambling has
shown us how often, in my opinion, this has been
happening over the past several decades and not necessarily gotten
caught because there isn't a regulatory mechanism by which it
gets caught. Look, the sports books want games to be
on the up and up more than anybody because they
(13:45):
risk if there's a rig, They're the ones who are
risking the money oftentimes and being taken advantage of.
Speaker 1 (13:52):
We'll get into more of this. I'm sure a lot
of you're gonna have some takes.
Speaker 3 (13:55):
I'm curious what questions people have out there because this
is a crazy story. Well, what sports sports should be
an area where it's actually a totally fair market because
there's really no I mean, the teams are the teams,
so and no one knows what's gonna happen the posing forces,
(14:16):
so it's it's very clear fraud if somebody is affecting
that clear marketplace because of individual gain illicit profit. So
I totally see this as you know, if you have
laws against insider trading, you've got to have laws against
people shaving points or doing these prop out things.
Speaker 1 (14:33):
I mean, and I know we do, but I'm just
saying you have to enforce those laws too. Yeah, no doubt.
We'll talk about this.
Speaker 3 (14:39):
I'm curious what questions you guys might have because this
is a crazy story. They're gonna make movies about this.
I mean, there's gonna be Netflix documentaries, there's gonna be
Netflix series. It's like Rounders, which is super popular game
for proker players. Maybe some of y'all even feel like
maybe you were in some of these high end games.
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Speaker 7 (16:06):
Making America great again isn't just one man, It's many.
The Team forty seven podcast Sunday's at noon Eastern in
the Clay and Buck podcast feed. Find it on the
iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 1 (16:21):
Welcome back into Clay and Buck here and we're talking
about this big sports story. Play is all over it.
Don't worry. It is as we say out kick Defcon
one over here is the big deal in the sports world.
Bringing a lot of things the mob sports, high tech frauds,
all all sorts of things. And here is the US
attorney who was making this announcement at the press conference saying, look,
(16:42):
you got to remember, the sports books are actually the
victims here Play five.
Speaker 4 (16:46):
Did the illegal conduct cross with the legal sports betting
platforms in any capacity? And if so, is that the
search warrants that the police conditioner just reference.
Speaker 8 (16:55):
I'm not sure I quite understand your question. You're asking
if the illegal conduct if.
Speaker 4 (17:00):
It trusted with like the sports betting industry or the
online sports betting industry.
Speaker 8 (17:04):
In these sports books themselves are victims in this case,
They at themselves did not as far as our investigation
has concluded, they did not perpetrate anything unlawful.
Speaker 1 (17:18):
Can I just ask that? What does he mean? Give
me a little We only got like thirty seconds. But
how are they the victims here? I mean, I know
they didn't do anything wrong, but how are they victimized
in this?
Speaker 3 (17:26):
Because the player rigged the game and they had to
pay out the winnings based on an improper effort and
illegal act by the players, So they had to pay
out to the betters who won the game, so they
lost all of the money.
Speaker 1 (17:41):
So they think it's a ten to one that you're
taking and really it's not.
Speaker 3 (17:44):
Yeah, the game was rigged, I mean, and that's why
they were able to catch this. I'll explain that a
little bit more because it is an interesting dynamic.
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Speaker 3 (18:38):
Back in Clay Travis fuck Sexton show, we appreciate all
of you hanging out with us. This is an interesting
take that I did not see coming.
Speaker 1 (18:50):
Stephen A.
Speaker 3 (18:50):
Smith on ESPN this is very funny too. While they
were talking about this case, they had a promo for
their ESPN gambling app at the bottom of the screen
offering people to sign up, which is again very funny
to me, and I get it. Some of you are like, oh,
I hate sports gambling. Like, I'll give you an example.
(19:15):
Katie just sent me a message. Have you considered the
example you are setting by supporting your family with sports
betting money. Katie is very angry. She sent me a
bunch of messages. I think that all of sports gambling,
or alcohol, or fatty foods for that matter, anything in
(19:35):
moderation I am in favor of. I like picking winners
in sports, and it makes to me sports more fun. Now,
there is a line between legal wagering and illegal wagering,
and obviously, according to the FBI, these guys have crossed it.
And I understand there's a religious element out there. Some people,
(19:57):
probably I don't know what percentage of this audience, A
lot of you wish alcohol was illegal still, and my
concern is if you go back and look and study
the history of prohibition. We actually created way more crime
than we prevented by keeping alcohol off the streets. And
it's fascinating eras of history. Go back and study all
(20:20):
of this. In my opinion, buck has been going on,
but it's been happening for decades without the bright light
of regulation being able to be shined on it. And
now we're catching people, and people are saying, oh my goodness,
Look there's illegality that's associated with sports. I mean it
started one hundred years ago with the White Sox. I
mean Pete Rose. When Pete Rose got caught gambling. Gambling
(20:43):
wasn't legal in this country, and so I think you're
more likely to catch it. But this is what a
ESPN said Steven A. Smith.
Speaker 1 (20:50):
I haven't even heard this. I saw it trending. Stephen A.
Speaker 3 (20:53):
Smith went on and drew a connection to Donald Trump
over these charges being brought.
Speaker 9 (20:58):
Listen how many times, for one incident after another have
I said Trump is coming, He's coming. I'm gonna say
it on national television again. Bad Bunny is performing at
the Super Bowl, and all of a sudden you hear
in Ice is gonna be there looking to engage in
mass deportations. The Super Bowl, disrupting things big night for
(21:19):
the NBA when Beyonna put on a show that has
now been smeared because we're talking about this story. But
I've been saying he's coming. He's coming because in his eyes,
folks try to throw him in jail. In his eyes,
he's innocent. They try to put me behind balls. I'm
getting everybody, he's not playing, and so this in a
(21:40):
lot of people's eyes. Talk to people in the NBA,
talk to people in the NFL, talk to people in
the world of sports. They think this is like the
tip of the iceberg. These are the kind of words
that are coming out of people's mouths. It's not a surprise.
It's very disheartening, it's very concerning. We don't know where
this is going to go, but this is just the tip.
Speaker 1 (21:57):
Of the iceberg. Everybody's been embracing themsels us. Okay, mister
stephen A has veered into my laid now because he
is invoking Trump's name and politics into this clay. Is
he suggesting that there wasn't fraudulent illegal gambling. Remember, there
are actual victims here, right, There are people who thought
(22:19):
that they were betting on a fair contest who lost
money because the contest was fixed. This is not okay,
that is that is fraud, right, and fraud, It's very
fraud goes right to uh, the our society. If we
don't have contracts that can be enforced, and if we
don't have a system that we can count on, whether
it's for stocks or for things like this, uh or
(22:40):
you know, or for our business activities of any kind,
things get very ugly, very quickly. Is he suggesting that
this is somehow a Trump reprisal thing?
Speaker 10 (22:51):
Though?
Speaker 1 (22:52):
That's a bad that, mister steven A. It's a very
very bad take. I mean, this is a foolish and
silly take. Not not good. If he thinks he's gonna
run for president, this is the kind of thing. I'm
sure he's a great sports analyst, Clay, not a great
political analyst. This is not about Trump, Okay. So this
is a multi year investigation. First of all, if you listen,
(23:13):
you know a lot of the people of them. But
also they either did it or they didn't do it correct,
So this is right, Like, how does Trump didn't make
them do this?
Speaker 3 (23:20):
I don't think Trump was involved in I don't think
this case is significant enough for Trump to have been
involved in it in any way. But but I do
think that this is a sign of Trump's power that
anything happens and people immediately point to him and say, hey,
this was this had Trump's fingerprints all over it. Look,
(23:45):
this is a what I think is potentially the tip
of the iceberg is I will just tell you. I'll
tell you right off top. I've been invited to super
high end poker games because people know I have money,
and they probably know all so that I'm not very
good at poker, and that makes me the fish in
this scenario. And you like to gamble, and I like
(24:06):
to gamble. I've never gone. I played poker Stars, you know,
or whatever it's called poker after Dark. I did a
celebrity poker with mister Beast and Ted Cruz, and that's
out there. And I enjoy occasionally playing poker, but I
don't want to play against card sharks who are infinitely
smarter than me. Where I think at poker, where I
(24:29):
think this is interesting buck is if you can lose
one point eight million dollars playing poker in one night,
as is alleged in this indictment, some of the guys
that were victimized here are super famous, I think, and
likely very very rich. And these kind of games are
(24:52):
happening all over the country with really rich guys. Primarily
some women play poker, but mostly it's the male sport
with really rich guys. And I think some people listening
to us right now who have played in these games.
Your eyebrows are going up because you're saying, wait a minute.
They used, according to this indictment, Chauncey Billups and Damon Jones,
(25:13):
who if you're a sports fan you would certainly know
Chauncey Billups may well know Damon Jones to try to
draw in famous guys. They said, this was eleven states.
The mafia may well be rigging a lot of private
poker games out there that have a lot of money
at stake.
Speaker 1 (25:32):
And then this is what I'm asking you, is this
is this the beginning of that. I think, I think
this is very true. I think this could be very true.
I think there are guys out there listening who are like,
uh oh, because maybe you're paying, you know, you're playing
for thousands of dollars a night. Maybe some guys are
in hundreds of thousands of dollars where lots of money
swings hands, and I know they have these kind of
(25:54):
games in high end poker tables. Buck, I've seen fifty
thousand dollars hand face to face poker matches inside of
a casino, Like one guy's betting they're betting fifty thousand
dollars a poker hand against each other. So there are
lots of these super high end that are taking place
in casinos, and in theory, you would be somewhat confident
(26:15):
that they're not using X ray tables or contact the
lenses that allow you to be cheated in the poker
match at a casino. But I think these if the
mafia saw this, Buck, they saw how much money was involved,
and they started running the math on what if we
put these games on and we start taking our share
and then using the mafia to collect Because if the
(26:38):
guys you lose the money, you've got a dude showing
up who's different than your average poker player saying, hey,
where's the cash, buddy? Right, Well, that's where where this
becomes something that organized crime is going to be. You know,
views itself as having the end is one The risk
of doing these things illegally right, A lot of people
(26:59):
don't want to go to prison, and people who are
in an organized crime that's part of the that's part
of the uh, the life.
Speaker 3 (27:05):
UH.
Speaker 1 (27:05):
And then beyond that to use muscle to collect, right,
that's the other thing you can't you know, even if
if you lose money in a whole bunch of other capacities,
the worst thing could happens if someone takes you to court,
maybe bankruptcy, something like that. No one's allowed to show up,
no one's allowed to show up and break your kneecaps. Yes,
the mob does that.
Speaker 3 (27:21):
That used to have debtor prisons back in the day,
and we found out that that was not a great
way to deal with show debt.
Speaker 1 (27:28):
So uh. And I remember one of the guys I
work with the NYPD has been a career doing Russian
organized crime. I think I've talked about this a little
bit before in the show. So first of all, a
lot of Russian organized crime isn't even Russian. It's anybody
from you know, the guys could be from Turkmenistan or
or Albania and they'll say, you know, they'll be oh,
it's a Russian organized crime. Thing Like the way the reporters,
(27:50):
will we'll talk about it, or if there's any touch
because the Russian thing sound scary to people, but he
used to tell me that they they would be ex
ultra violent back in Russia because they could totally get
away with it. But in this country, they wanted to
run scams. They wanted to run health care frauds, they
wanted to run I knew this thing. I talked about
where they were doing the oil from the back of
(28:11):
the restaurants, the fry oil, millions of dollars because people
actually pay for that stuff and they would steal it
in the organized crime into that organized crime can. They
like to get into things where they're breaking the law
and making a lot of money, but they're not necessarily
leaving dead bodies because people when you leave a dead body,
people know. You take some guy, some super rich guy,
for a million dollars at a poker game, Clay. Maybe
(28:33):
he doesn't even want to pursue it, you know. Maybe
he doesn't. Maybe he's a famous person who doesn't want
it to be known. Maybe a whole bunch of things
can happen. Maybe he's embarrassed. Maybe wife doesn't know, maybe
kids don't know. That's why I think this is potentially
the tip of the iceberg. Also, they arrested over thirty people.
How many of those guys might roll over and give
(28:54):
up larger issues that are in play? Right if you're
suddenly Terry Rosier and you are looking at years in
prison and giving up your golden seat there at the
NBA or Chauncey Billups, do you know other guys that
maybe have engaged in behavior like this. I mean, again,
(29:17):
how many other poker matches like this? Let me just
toss this out there. The mafia doesn't invent an X
ray table card table and only use it one place.
Speaker 3 (29:31):
I mean, if you've got contact lenses that allow you
to look and see cards, if you've got cameras and everything.
They weren't just doing this in New York City. They
found out, Hey, this is what this could be a
lot bigger.
Speaker 1 (29:46):
And I also play think there's a lot more they're
going to find of people in the sports world who
were cheating too. I just think there's too much. There's
too much money, There's too much.
Speaker 3 (29:58):
There's a lot of them on there's a lot of
morons again, risking your twenty six million dollar contract for
two hundred grand and prop payouts, that seems and only
doing it once that seems highly unlikely to me.
Speaker 1 (30:11):
And uh, and again this is where the bright light shines.
So you don't think people were fixing other games though, No, no,
I do.
Speaker 3 (30:18):
I'm saying it feels highly unlikely to me that you
just did this thing one time.
Speaker 1 (30:22):
Right, Yeah, when you get.
Speaker 3 (30:23):
Pulled over for speeding, what are the odds that that's
the only time you've spent in a month. I mean,
most people don't get caught lay Travis, you could probably clock.
You could probably clock the last time you got pulled
over for speeding because you only go to the airport
at one hundred miles an hour in your suv.
Speaker 1 (30:37):
I got. I got pulled over in North Florida.
Speaker 3 (30:40):
Nice gentlemen, tiny little, tiny little town, driving back from
the Miami FSU game.
Speaker 1 (30:46):
And uh, some of us play kids like to drive
the speed limit, as much as we may get made
fun of for it.
Speaker 3 (30:52):
I need, uh, I need my own driver so I
can just sit in the back and not have to
pay attention to the speed limit and just work away
in the back seat.
Speaker 1 (30:59):
Well, make some more of your calls.
Speaker 3 (31:00):
We got a bunch of good talkbacks, But I want
to tell you do you need some more energy? Do
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Speaker 7 (32:01):
Sometimes all you can do is laugh, and they do
a lot of it with the Sunday Hang Join Clay
and Buck as they laugh it up in the Klay
and Buck podcast feed on the iHeartRadio app or wherever
you get your podcasts.
Speaker 1 (32:15):
Welcome back into Clay and Buck. We got a bunch
of calls here. We're talking a lot about this series
of big arrests. I do want to get in the
next hour into the latest on the Virginia governor's race
and also some of the shutdown theatrics. So we're going
to focus in on some of the politics here going
on today. But you had cash matel FBI director at
(32:36):
this big press conference, all these arrests. Even this is
Clay even I know who Chauncey Billups is, so.
Speaker 3 (32:43):
You know, yeah, I mean seventeen year NBA veteran, NBA
Hall of Famer, I mean, current coach of the Portland
Trail Blazers. He is a super famous NBA star. Yeah,
so it's definitely definitely a big deal. Let's take some
calls here. Jim in Cincinnati, what's going on?
Speaker 1 (32:58):
Jim?
Speaker 10 (33:01):
I ain't claim fuck, it's pleasure to Polly, talk to
you guys. I retired from sports officiating about twelve years ago,
in twenty fourteen, and sports gambling was always part of
our yearly training, how to avoid, how to spot it,
you know, things like that that you know, we were
(33:22):
trying to always be on the up and up. And
I said, when this sports gambling became legalized, it was
gonna hurt the bookie, and it was gonna hurt the
mob and because they were behind all of that action
that was going on for the last seventy five years. Yeah,
and I have a feeling that, you know, these players
(33:43):
that got caught up in this racket probably got into
trouble with these mob bosses or some of these guys
that owed them. For him to win two hundred thousand dollars,
which is peanuts, he probably owed them a favor, said, Okay,
I'm gonna play these nine minutes and I'm gonna be
(34:04):
under under. He bet on it because he was calling
his uh, his proof of guys. Look, I'm gonna put
on this, but the mop and this is where Jash
mattelisavers tens of millions of dollars. The mob guys weren't
saying Okay, we're gonna get even and we're gonna get
our payday, and they were all betting heavy.
Speaker 3 (34:26):
Yeah, this is this is a great Uh, this is
a great call, and thank you for calling in. This
is why they flag irregular bet patterns. So to uh
was it Jim to the callers point that we just
had there, Pete Rose and a lot of you out there,
we're making illegal wagers with your bookies in the nineteen sixties, seventies, eighties, nineties,
(34:51):
two thousands, even when technically sports gambling was illegal everywhere
basically except for Las Vegas. State of Nevada was Grandfather,
which was always strange in and of itself. You could
get on a plane and go place huge wagers in
Las Vegas or in Reno, but you couldn't do it
anywhere else in the country, which was why New Jersey
sued over this.
Speaker 1 (35:11):
It's really just a cartel, Let's be honest. I mean,
when you just have one place that has control over
an industry, because it has control over the industry, it's
a cartel.
Speaker 3 (35:19):
So they got that special cartel treatment and so here.
I don't know if that is true what our caller alleged.
It could be and that's always been the fear. But
the problem is you can't get down that much wager
on games that are not really big, like the super Bowl.
(35:40):
I was using an example. Billions of dollars are bet
on the Super Bowl on a random Charlotte Hornet's prop
bet of how many points a player is going to
score on any given night. It's unlikely that there's much
more than a few hundred thousand dollars across all the
sportsbooks that you could even get down on that issue.
Speaker 1 (35:59):
They will limit you, trust me, I know. So come
up here in a few minutes, let's dive into some
of the big races that are just weeks away from
being decided New Jersey, New Jersey governor's race, Virginia governor's race,
New York City mayor. In that Virginia race, I think
we might have the worst, the worst political analysis I've
(36:21):
ever heard on MSNBC. Clay almost as bad as Steven
A's take on Trump being behind these arrests today. It's
a really, really bad take. We'll come back to it
in a minute.
Welcome everybody to the Thursday edition of the Clay Travis
en Buck Sexton Show, and much to discuss with all
of you. We're back from Fort Wyn, Indiana, where we
were yesterday. Who WO Land had a great time there.
Thank you all for coming out for the live show.
Thank you all for listening in the Greater Indiana area,
because of course WO WO reaches far and wide in
(00:22):
the wo's your state and it was a great time.
Thank you, Thank you. Let's look at what we have
on the docket for you all today. Why is Abigail
Spanberger having trouble in Virginia? The best answer, some people
are saying, the best answer you're gonna hear anywhere, the
most hilarious. We will get to that in a bit.
(00:43):
That Virginia governor's race, of course, very important. More updates
on Kami Mamdani in New York City and what is
going on there. Marco Rubio, the Secretary of State, talks
about his view of blowing up these Narco boats. We've
got the military going kinetic on Narco boats off the
coast of Venezuela in international waters, and we shall discuss
(01:05):
that a little more attention being paid to what's getting
in the middle of this whole shutdown fight, including the
cost of healthcare, which I really hope people will start
to pay more attention to. But we're going to dive
into something else here for a moment. I was watching
this morning, I was I was getting prepton. I flew
(01:28):
flew back home. Howd you get to the Nashville By
the way, Nashville Airport is so civilized. It's such a
nice airport, great airport. Miami Airport is trash. I love Miami,
I love Florida. Miami Airport, Miaport is trash. Anyway, Nashville
Airport lovely civilized. There's you know, practically a bluegrass band.
Actually sometimes there is a blue grass band just playing
whenever you walk around there, hanging out. But I was
(01:50):
flying back this morning and I saw this story, and
I watched some of this press conference, and I was like,
oh boy, this is like Clay Travis OutKick def Con one.
This is a thing, the NBA betting scandal. Let's just
start this off, Clay, before you take us on a
whirlwind tour of all the madness. FBI director Cash Patel
(02:10):
announcing these arrests the betting scandal the mobs involved, oh
my play one.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
As you now know, individuals such as Chauncey Billups, Damon Jones,
and Terry Rozier were taking into custody today former current
NBA players and coaches. What you don't know is that
this is an illegal gambling operation and sports rigging operation
that span the course of years. The FBI led a
coordinative takedown across eleven states to arrest over thirty individuals
(02:38):
today responsible for this case, which is very much ongoing.
The men and women that are standing up here today
worked tireless hours, days, months, and years, and the fraud
is mind boggling. It's not hundreds of dollars, it's not
thousands of dollars. It's not tens of thousands of dollars.
It's not even millions of dollars. We're talking about tens
(02:59):
of millions of dollars in fraud and theft and robbery
across a multi year investigation.
Speaker 1 (03:07):
Clay, I got to ask you, because I've already had
three people ask me to ask you, as I've asked
walking my dog on the street. What does Clay think
about the betting scandal? Clay take it away, all.
Speaker 3 (03:18):
Right, So this is like maybe my most epic wheelhouse.
I've been on Fox News all morning and uh I
watched and listened to the entire cash Ptel press conference.
So let me break it down for you twofold And
by the way, some of you may have questions about
this because I think this is going to be one
of those stories that it connects everywhere because some of
(03:43):
the details are just so crazy. So let me let
me break it down for you. Basically, the FBI announced
two different indictments which were interconnected. The first one it
feels like a movie. The mafia was rigging potoker games
and they were using some of the details here buck
(04:05):
contact lenses that could look through cards X ray machines
to know what cards were coming. There were cameras in chandeliers,
and they were using what they called face cards. These
are famous guys. Imagine they're almost all men to draw
(04:26):
in the card players, the poker players, and one of
them was Chauncey Billups. Allegedly the head coach right now
was of the Portland Trailblazers who was arrested early this morning.
So this is the mafia, which we haven't heard a
lot about for a long time. Rigging these high end
poker games. They said the amounts of lost money were
(04:50):
in the tens of millions of dollars. One guy lost
one point eight million dollars in one game. I bet
I bet that we have listeners right now who were
in these games. I bet I'm just gonna I'm just
gonna toss it out there and that some of these
high end poker games, you guys went and you thought, man,
(05:11):
I just I really had a rough night.
Speaker 4 (05:13):
You know.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
No, No, you were the fish, you were the rich guy.
Speaker 3 (05:17):
Probably almost all men that they brought in and they
rigged these games. Okay, there is a man named Damon Jones,
former coach and player in the NBA, who was charged
alongside of Chauncey Billups in this case. And then there
was he was the lynchpin to a second case which
had to do with brazen sports corruption and insider betting scandal.
(05:44):
Do we have Jess Tish because this really kind of
sums up the NBA side. She said that Terry Rosier,
an NBA basketball player right now buck for your Miami Heat,
who was previously playing for the Charlotte Hornets, he told
everybody he was going to leave a game early, left
(06:04):
after only nine minutes. There were two hundred thousand dollars
wagered on him not achieving the numbers that were prop
betted for that particular game, points, rebounds, assist, and they said.
The proceeds were then delivered to his house where they
counted the two hundred thousand dollars in cash. Now we
(06:27):
have that cut three. Listen to this and I'll give
you a take on a couple of different angles here.
Speaker 5 (06:32):
In some instances, players altered their performance or took themselves
out of games to make sure that those bets paid out.
One example occurred on March twenty third, twenty twenty three,
in Charlotte. Terry Rogier, an NBA player now with the
Miami Heat but at the time playing for the Hornets,
allegedly let others close to him know that he planned
(06:55):
to leave the game early with a supposed injury. Using
that information, the group placed more than two hundred thousand
dollars in wagers on his under statistics. Rosier exited the
game after just nine minutes, and those bets paid out,
generating tens of thousands of dollars in profit. The proceeds
(07:15):
were later delivered to his home where the group counted
their cash. As the NBA season tips off, his career
is already benched, not for injury but for integrity.
Speaker 1 (07:28):
Yeah, what is your takeaway? Buck? Can I ask? Yes?
I feel like the kid in the classroom, like I
have questions. I have questions. Okay, how much money does
this guy Rosier make? Because NBA salaries I'll tell you
twenty six point six million dollars this year. So this
is an epically dumb decision that is potentially going to
(07:49):
put in behind bars and make him basically what he
makes on an average NBA game. Thank you. This is
this is what I was wondering about because to me, okay,
so it is mind blowingly stupid, mind blowingly stupid. Forget
about the integrity and all that that's that's baked into this.
We of course, no, you shouldn't do this, but you're
gonna risk a twenty six million dollar made salary for
(08:13):
two hundred is like twenty four thousand dollars per game
right now, Buck? So he risked basically one half of
a game salary, one half of one game salary, uh,
for to lose all of it. Astonishing, astonishing, It's I
don't even know what to say. I that's one of
(08:34):
the dumbest criminal capers I've heard in a very long time.
Speaker 3 (08:38):
Yes, and and look, uh, I've got so many takes
on this. I mean, I'll hold it up for people
watching on video. I mean I was watching this press
conference live and my jaw just kept dropping the detail
of the ways that they would rig these poker games.
I mean, if you put it in a movie, a
(09:00):
lot of us would say, there's no way that could
actually be true. And listen to it. I think we
have cut four. This is us Attorney Joseph Ncella might
be mispronouncing his game. Describing the way that they would
cheat in these poker games.
Speaker 6 (09:17):
They used off the shelf shuffling machines that had been
secretly altered in order to read the cards in the deck,
predict which player at the table had the best poker hands,
and relay that information to an off site operator. Defendants
used other cheating technologies, such as poker chip tray analyzers,
which is a poker chip tray that secretly reads cards
(09:40):
using a hidden camera, special contact lenses or eyeglasses that
could read pre marked cards, and an X ray table
that could read cards face down.
Speaker 1 (09:49):
On the table, Buck.
Speaker 3 (09:52):
I mean, this is crazy stuff, and so I believe
what happened. This is my theory in general on watching
this press conference, is they became aware that mafia was
involved in rigging these games, and then based upon the
surveillance of the people who were involved in these games,
they were then able to find out that this NBA
(10:15):
rigging of individual bets may also have been going through
the lynchpin connector here, which was Damon Jones, who was
accused on both sides of this these charges. Remember when
they were bringing that preposterous Rico case against Trump in Atlanta,
and you and I were talking about how it was
absurd and Rico is really something that you think of
(10:38):
for cross state mafia illicit fraudulent activities. This to me
looks like a big Rico case, right, I mean, if
you're talking about the mo eleven six states, fixing games
in eleven different states, massive fraud, millions and millions of dollars,
And I know they've had dozen they've had dozens of
people already indicted.
Speaker 1 (10:59):
Is that right over?
Speaker 3 (11:01):
Thirty is the number of people that were indicted, One
current player, one current coach, one former coach, and player
connected to the NBA.
Speaker 1 (11:10):
So now Clay was inescapable this morning, you know, I'm
making I'm making my crack at coffee. Clay's on the TV.
I'm listening to this the radio, Clay's other talking about this.
So I have to ask you this. I'm sure others
have asked you. I haven't heard you address this one yet, though.
Do you think this is the tip of the iceberg
when it comes to this kind of fixing? Or is
(11:30):
this the worst of it? Have we already heard the
worst of it? Or is there more?
Speaker 3 (11:34):
Well, some people don't like the fact that I like
sports gambling, and you're certainly entitled to that opinion, just
like some people don't like the fact that I like bourbon.
You know, I am a center when it comes to
two things like that.
Speaker 1 (11:50):
I love to gamble, I like to have an occasional drink.
Speaker 3 (11:54):
I actually think Buck that legalized gambling makes it more
likely that we catch people for this, because the sports
books who were described as victims here, the sports books
typically catch illegue, irregular wagering patterns.
Speaker 1 (12:10):
Almost like stock market sec stuff, right like if someone
bets the farm the day before the big announcement comes out,
that's right that they can tell.
Speaker 3 (12:17):
They caught an Alabama baseball coach, for instance, because he
had an associate allegedly going, I think to a Cincinnati,
Ohio sports book and bet try to bet a ton
of money on a random college baseball game, and they
just said, well, you know this, like it's one thing.
If you walk in and you say, hey, I want
to put five grand down on the super Bowl, that's
(12:38):
not an uncommon bet.
Speaker 1 (12:40):
They wouldn't. It wouldn't raise eyebrows.
Speaker 3 (12:42):
If you walk in and you say, hey, I want
to put five thousand dollars down in a random sports
book on a random college baseball.
Speaker 1 (12:50):
Game, women's field hockey, yeah, yeah, yeah, right.
Speaker 3 (12:53):
If you suddenly walked up and you're like, hey, I'm
gonna put one hundred and k on a WNBA game,
they would be like, hmm sorry. In other words, they
put limits in place. A lot of times you can't
get down the full amount of money that you do.
Therefore you try to go around to different books. Usually
it gets flagged, and that's why the line is adjusting constantly. Right,
(13:14):
there's a market, and if tons of sharp money they
call it comes in on one side or the other,
they wonder about injuries, they wonder about things like that.
Speaker 1 (13:23):
I think what has.
Speaker 3 (13:24):
Happened, Buck, is the sunshine of legalized sports gambling has
shown us how often, in my opinion, this has been
happening over the past several decades and not necessarily gotten
caught because there isn't a regulatory mechanism by which it
gets caught. Look, the sports books want games to be
on the up and up more than anybody because they
(13:45):
risk if there's a rig, They're the ones who are
risking the money oftentimes and being taken advantage of.
Speaker 1 (13:52):
We'll get into more of this. I'm sure a lot
of you're gonna have some takes.
Speaker 3 (13:55):
I'm curious what questions people have out there because this
is a crazy story. Well, what sports sports should be
an area where it's actually a totally fair market because
there's really no I mean, the teams are the teams,
so and no one knows what's gonna happen the posing forces,
(14:16):
so it's it's very clear fraud if somebody is affecting
that clear marketplace because of individual gain illicit profit. So
I totally see this as you know, if you have
laws against insider trading, you've got to have laws against
people shaving points or doing these prop out things.
Speaker 1 (14:33):
I mean, and I know we do, but I'm just
saying you have to enforce those laws too. Yeah, no doubt.
We'll talk about this.
Speaker 3 (14:39):
I'm curious what questions you guys might have because this
is a crazy story. They're gonna make movies about this.
I mean, there's gonna be Netflix documentaries, there's gonna be
Netflix series. It's like Rounders, which is super popular game
for proker players. Maybe some of y'all even feel like
maybe you were in some of these high end games.
We'll talk about that, but I want to tell you
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I said, I are these just way better than our
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Speaker 7 (16:06):
Making America great again isn't just one man, It's many.
The Team forty seven podcast Sunday's at noon Eastern in
the Clay and Buck podcast feed. Find it on the
iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 1 (16:21):
Welcome back into Clay and Buck here and we're talking
about this big sports story. Play is all over it.
Don't worry. It is as we say out kick Defcon
one over here is the big deal in the sports world.
Bringing a lot of things the mob sports, high tech frauds,
all all sorts of things. And here is the US
attorney who was making this announcement at the press conference saying, look,
(16:42):
you got to remember, the sports books are actually the
victims here Play five.
Speaker 4 (16:46):
Did the illegal conduct cross with the legal sports betting
platforms in any capacity? And if so, is that the
search warrants that the police conditioner just reference.
Speaker 8 (16:55):
I'm not sure I quite understand your question. You're asking
if the illegal conduct if.
Speaker 4 (17:00):
It trusted with like the sports betting industry or the
online sports betting industry.
Speaker 8 (17:04):
In these sports books themselves are victims in this case,
They at themselves did not as far as our investigation
has concluded, they did not perpetrate anything unlawful.
Speaker 1 (17:18):
Can I just ask that? What does he mean? Give
me a little We only got like thirty seconds. But
how are they the victims here? I mean, I know
they didn't do anything wrong, but how are they victimized
in this?
Speaker 3 (17:26):
Because the player rigged the game and they had to
pay out the winnings based on an improper effort and
illegal act by the players, So they had to pay
out to the betters who won the game, so they
lost all of the money.
Speaker 1 (17:41):
So they think it's a ten to one that you're
taking and really it's not.
Speaker 3 (17:44):
Yeah, the game was rigged, I mean, and that's why
they were able to catch this. I'll explain that a
little bit more because it is an interesting dynamic.
Speaker 1 (17:54):
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Speaker 3 (18:38):
Back in Clay Travis fuck Sexton show, we appreciate all
of you hanging out with us. This is an interesting
take that I did not see coming.
Speaker 1 (18:50):
Stephen A.
Speaker 3 (18:50):
Smith on ESPN this is very funny too. While they
were talking about this case, they had a promo for
their ESPN gambling app at the bottom of the screen
offering people to sign up, which is again very funny
to me, and I get it. Some of you are like, oh,
I hate sports gambling. Like, I'll give you an example.
(19:15):
Katie just sent me a message. Have you considered the
example you are setting by supporting your family with sports
betting money. Katie is very angry. She sent me a
bunch of messages. I think that all of sports gambling,
or alcohol, or fatty foods for that matter, anything in
(19:35):
moderation I am in favor of. I like picking winners
in sports, and it makes to me sports more fun. Now,
there is a line between legal wagering and illegal wagering,
and obviously, according to the FBI, these guys have crossed it.
And I understand there's a religious element out there. Some people,
(19:57):
probably I don't know what percentage of this audience, A
lot of you wish alcohol was illegal still, and my
concern is if you go back and look and study
the history of prohibition. We actually created way more crime
than we prevented by keeping alcohol off the streets. And
it's fascinating eras of history. Go back and study all
(20:20):
of this. In my opinion, buck has been going on,
but it's been happening for decades without the bright light
of regulation being able to be shined on it. And
now we're catching people, and people are saying, oh my goodness,
Look there's illegality that's associated with sports. I mean it
started one hundred years ago with the White Sox. I
mean Pete Rose. When Pete Rose got caught gambling. Gambling
(20:43):
wasn't legal in this country, and so I think you're
more likely to catch it. But this is what a
ESPN said Steven A. Smith.
Speaker 1 (20:50):
I haven't even heard this. I saw it trending. Stephen A.
Speaker 3 (20:53):
Smith went on and drew a connection to Donald Trump
over these charges being brought.
Speaker 9 (20:58):
Listen how many times, for one incident after another have
I said Trump is coming, He's coming. I'm gonna say
it on national television again. Bad Bunny is performing at
the Super Bowl, and all of a sudden you hear
in Ice is gonna be there looking to engage in
mass deportations. The Super Bowl, disrupting things big night for
(21:19):
the NBA when Beyonna put on a show that has
now been smeared because we're talking about this story. But
I've been saying he's coming. He's coming because in his eyes,
folks try to throw him in jail. In his eyes,
he's innocent. They try to put me behind balls. I'm
getting everybody, he's not playing, and so this in a
(21:40):
lot of people's eyes. Talk to people in the NBA,
talk to people in the NFL, talk to people in
the world of sports. They think this is like the
tip of the iceberg. These are the kind of words
that are coming out of people's mouths. It's not a surprise.
It's very disheartening, it's very concerning. We don't know where
this is going to go, but this is just the tip.
Speaker 1 (21:57):
Of the iceberg. Everybody's been embracing themsels us. Okay, mister
stephen A has veered into my laid now because he
is invoking Trump's name and politics into this clay. Is
he suggesting that there wasn't fraudulent illegal gambling. Remember, there
are actual victims here, right, There are people who thought
(22:19):
that they were betting on a fair contest who lost
money because the contest was fixed. This is not okay,
that is that is fraud, right, and fraud, It's very
fraud goes right to uh, the our society. If we
don't have contracts that can be enforced, and if we
don't have a system that we can count on, whether
it's for stocks or for things like this, uh or
(22:40):
you know, or for our business activities of any kind,
things get very ugly, very quickly. Is he suggesting that
this is somehow a Trump reprisal thing?
Speaker 10 (22:51):
Though?
Speaker 1 (22:52):
That's a bad that, mister steven A. It's a very
very bad take. I mean, this is a foolish and
silly take. Not not good. If he thinks he's gonna
run for president, this is the kind of thing. I'm
sure he's a great sports analyst, Clay, not a great
political analyst. This is not about Trump, Okay. So this
is a multi year investigation. First of all, if you listen,
(23:13):
you know a lot of the people of them. But
also they either did it or they didn't do it correct,
So this is right, Like, how does Trump didn't make
them do this?
Speaker 3 (23:20):
I don't think Trump was involved in I don't think
this case is significant enough for Trump to have been
involved in it in any way. But but I do
think that this is a sign of Trump's power that
anything happens and people immediately point to him and say, hey,
this was this had Trump's fingerprints all over it. Look,
(23:45):
this is a what I think is potentially the tip
of the iceberg is I will just tell you. I'll
tell you right off top. I've been invited to super
high end poker games because people know I have money,
and they probably know all so that I'm not very
good at poker, and that makes me the fish in
this scenario. And you like to gamble, and I like
(24:06):
to gamble. I've never gone. I played poker Stars, you know,
or whatever it's called poker after Dark. I did a
celebrity poker with mister Beast and Ted Cruz, and that's
out there. And I enjoy occasionally playing poker, but I
don't want to play against card sharks who are infinitely
smarter than me. Where I think at poker, where I
(24:29):
think this is interesting buck is if you can lose
one point eight million dollars playing poker in one night,
as is alleged in this indictment, some of the guys
that were victimized here are super famous, I think, and
likely very very rich. And these kind of games are
(24:52):
happening all over the country with really rich guys. Primarily
some women play poker, but mostly it's the male sport
with really rich guys. And I think some people listening
to us right now who have played in these games.
Your eyebrows are going up because you're saying, wait a minute.
They used, according to this indictment, Chauncey Billups and Damon Jones,
(25:13):
who if you're a sports fan you would certainly know
Chauncey Billups may well know Damon Jones to try to
draw in famous guys. They said, this was eleven states.
The mafia may well be rigging a lot of private
poker games out there that have a lot of money
at stake.
Speaker 1 (25:32):
And then this is what I'm asking you, is this
is this the beginning of that. I think, I think
this is very true. I think this could be very true.
I think there are guys out there listening who are like,
uh oh, because maybe you're paying, you know, you're playing
for thousands of dollars a night. Maybe some guys are
in hundreds of thousands of dollars where lots of money
swings hands, and I know they have these kind of
(25:54):
games in high end poker tables. Buck, I've seen fifty
thousand dollars hand face to face poker matches inside of
a casino, Like one guy's betting they're betting fifty thousand
dollars a poker hand against each other. So there are
lots of these super high end that are taking place
in casinos, and in theory, you would be somewhat confident
(26:15):
that they're not using X ray tables or contact the
lenses that allow you to be cheated in the poker
match at a casino. But I think these if the
mafia saw this, Buck, they saw how much money was involved,
and they started running the math on what if we
put these games on and we start taking our share
and then using the mafia to collect Because if the
(26:38):
guys you lose the money, you've got a dude showing
up who's different than your average poker player saying, hey,
where's the cash, buddy? Right, Well, that's where where this
becomes something that organized crime is going to be. You know,
views itself as having the end is one The risk
of doing these things illegally right, A lot of people
(26:59):
don't want to go to prison, and people who are
in an organized crime that's part of the that's part
of the uh, the life.
Speaker 3 (27:05):
UH.
Speaker 1 (27:05):
And then beyond that to use muscle to collect, right,
that's the other thing you can't you know, even if
if you lose money in a whole bunch of other capacities,
the worst thing could happens if someone takes you to court,
maybe bankruptcy, something like that. No one's allowed to show up,
no one's allowed to show up and break your kneecaps. Yes,
the mob does that.
Speaker 3 (27:21):
That used to have debtor prisons back in the day,
and we found out that that was not a great
way to deal with show debt.
Speaker 1 (27:28):
So uh. And I remember one of the guys I
work with the NYPD has been a career doing Russian
organized crime. I think I've talked about this a little
bit before in the show. So first of all, a
lot of Russian organized crime isn't even Russian. It's anybody
from you know, the guys could be from Turkmenistan or
or Albania and they'll say, you know, they'll be oh,
it's a Russian organized crime. Thing Like the way the reporters,
(27:50):
will we'll talk about it, or if there's any touch
because the Russian thing sound scary to people, but he
used to tell me that they they would be ex
ultra violent back in Russia because they could totally get
away with it. But in this country, they wanted to
run scams. They wanted to run health care frauds, they
wanted to run I knew this thing. I talked about
where they were doing the oil from the back of
(28:11):
the restaurants, the fry oil, millions of dollars because people
actually pay for that stuff and they would steal it
in the organized crime into that organized crime can. They
like to get into things where they're breaking the law
and making a lot of money, but they're not necessarily
leaving dead bodies because people when you leave a dead body,
people know. You take some guy, some super rich guy,
for a million dollars at a poker game, Clay. Maybe
(28:33):
he doesn't even want to pursue it, you know. Maybe
he doesn't. Maybe he's a famous person who doesn't want
it to be known. Maybe a whole bunch of things
can happen. Maybe he's embarrassed. Maybe wife doesn't know, maybe
kids don't know. That's why I think this is potentially
the tip of the iceberg. Also, they arrested over thirty people.
How many of those guys might roll over and give
(28:54):
up larger issues that are in play? Right if you're
suddenly Terry Rosier and you are looking at years in
prison and giving up your golden seat there at the
NBA or Chauncey Billups, do you know other guys that
maybe have engaged in behavior like this. I mean, again,
(29:17):
how many other poker matches like this? Let me just
toss this out there. The mafia doesn't invent an X
ray table card table and only use it one place.
Speaker 3 (29:31):
I mean, if you've got contact lenses that allow you
to look and see cards, if you've got cameras and everything.
They weren't just doing this in New York City. They
found out, Hey, this is what this could be a
lot bigger.
Speaker 1 (29:46):
And I also play think there's a lot more they're
going to find of people in the sports world who
were cheating too. I just think there's too much. There's
too much money, There's too much.
Speaker 3 (29:58):
There's a lot of them on there's a lot of
morons again, risking your twenty six million dollar contract for
two hundred grand and prop payouts, that seems and only
doing it once that seems highly unlikely to me.
Speaker 1 (30:11):
And uh, and again this is where the bright light shines.
So you don't think people were fixing other games though, No, no,
I do.
Speaker 3 (30:18):
I'm saying it feels highly unlikely to me that you
just did this thing one time.
Speaker 1 (30:22):
Right, Yeah, when you get.
Speaker 3 (30:23):
Pulled over for speeding, what are the odds that that's
the only time you've spent in a month. I mean,
most people don't get caught lay Travis, you could probably clock.
You could probably clock the last time you got pulled
over for speeding because you only go to the airport
at one hundred miles an hour in your suv.
Speaker 1 (30:37):
I got. I got pulled over in North Florida.
Speaker 3 (30:40):
Nice gentlemen, tiny little, tiny little town, driving back from
the Miami FSU game.
Speaker 1 (30:46):
And uh, some of us play kids like to drive
the speed limit, as much as we may get made
fun of for it.
Speaker 3 (30:52):
I need, uh, I need my own driver so I
can just sit in the back and not have to
pay attention to the speed limit and just work away
in the back seat.
Speaker 1 (30:59):
Well, make some more of your calls.
Speaker 3 (31:00):
We got a bunch of good talkbacks, But I want
to tell you do you need some more energy? Do
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Speaker 7 (32:01):
Sometimes all you can do is laugh, and they do
a lot of it with the Sunday Hang Join Clay
and Buck as they laugh it up in the Klay
and Buck podcast feed on the iHeartRadio app or wherever
you get your podcasts.
Speaker 1 (32:15):
Welcome back into Clay and Buck. We got a bunch
of calls here. We're talking a lot about this series
of big arrests. I do want to get in the
next hour into the latest on the Virginia governor's race
and also some of the shutdown theatrics. So we're going
to focus in on some of the politics here going
on today. But you had cash matel FBI director at
(32:36):
this big press conference, all these arrests. Even this is
Clay even I know who Chauncey Billups is, so.
Speaker 3 (32:43):
You know, yeah, I mean seventeen year NBA veteran, NBA
Hall of Famer, I mean, current coach of the Portland
Trail Blazers. He is a super famous NBA star. Yeah,
so it's definitely definitely a big deal. Let's take some
calls here. Jim in Cincinnati, what's going on?
Speaker 1 (32:58):
Jim?
Speaker 10 (33:01):
I ain't claim fuck, it's pleasure to Polly, talk to
you guys. I retired from sports officiating about twelve years ago,
in twenty fourteen, and sports gambling was always part of
our yearly training, how to avoid, how to spot it,
you know, things like that that you know, we were
(33:22):
trying to always be on the up and up. And
I said, when this sports gambling became legalized, it was
gonna hurt the bookie, and it was gonna hurt the
mob and because they were behind all of that action
that was going on for the last seventy five years. Yeah,
and I have a feeling that, you know, these players
(33:43):
that got caught up in this racket probably got into
trouble with these mob bosses or some of these guys
that owed them. For him to win two hundred thousand dollars,
which is peanuts, he probably owed them a favor, said, Okay,
I'm gonna play these nine minutes and I'm gonna be
(34:04):
under under. He bet on it because he was calling
his uh, his proof of guys. Look, I'm gonna put
on this, but the mop and this is where Jash
mattelisavers tens of millions of dollars. The mob guys weren't
saying Okay, we're gonna get even and we're gonna get
our payday, and they were all betting heavy.
Speaker 3 (34:26):
Yeah, this is this is a great Uh, this is
a great call, and thank you for calling in. This
is why they flag irregular bet patterns. So to uh
was it Jim to the callers point that we just
had there, Pete Rose and a lot of you out there,
we're making illegal wagers with your bookies in the nineteen sixties, seventies, eighties, nineties,
(34:51):
two thousands, even when technically sports gambling was illegal everywhere
basically except for Las Vegas. State of Nevada was Grandfather,
which was always strange in and of itself. You could
get on a plane and go place huge wagers in
Las Vegas or in Reno, but you couldn't do it
anywhere else in the country, which was why New Jersey
sued over this.
Speaker 1 (35:11):
It's really just a cartel, Let's be honest. I mean,
when you just have one place that has control over
an industry, because it has control over the industry, it's
a cartel.
Speaker 3 (35:19):
So they got that special cartel treatment and so here.
I don't know if that is true what our caller alleged.
It could be and that's always been the fear. But
the problem is you can't get down that much wager
on games that are not really big, like the super Bowl.
(35:40):
I was using an example. Billions of dollars are bet
on the Super Bowl on a random Charlotte Hornet's prop
bet of how many points a player is going to
score on any given night. It's unlikely that there's much
more than a few hundred thousand dollars across all the
sportsbooks that you could even get down on that issue.
Speaker 1 (35:59):
They will limit you, trust me, I know. So come
up here in a few minutes, let's dive into some
of the big races that are just weeks away from
being decided New Jersey, New Jersey governor's race, Virginia governor's race,
New York City mayor. In that Virginia race, I think
we might have the worst, the worst political analysis I've
(36:21):
ever heard on MSNBC. Clay almost as bad as Steven
A's take on Trump being behind these arrests today. It's
a really, really bad take. We'll come back to it
in a minute.
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