October 24, 2025 • 14 mins
Everything you need to know about the FBI's arrests of current and former NBA players and coaches as part of illegal gambling operations, including one tied to the Mafia.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Yesterday morning, FBI Director Cash Patel announced the current and
former NBA players and coaches are facing charges in connection
with federal investigations into gambling.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
This is an illegal gambling operation and sports rigging operation
that spanned the course of years. The FBI led a
coordinative takedown across eleven states to arrest over thirty individuals
today responsible.
Speaker 3 (00:22):
For this case.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
Federal agents arrested Portland Trailblazers coach Chauncey Billups, Miami heat
guard Terry Rozier, and former NBA player Damon Jones in
connection with two major illegal gambling operations. The FBI says
Billups was tied to a mafia backed poker ring, Rosier
to a sports betting ring, and Jones to both. The
(00:45):
NBA announced that Rosier and Billups have been placed on
immediate leave from their teams. Battel went on to name
the crime families tied to the case.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
We also entered and executed a system of justice against
La Cassanos to include the Bonano, Gambino, Genevesi, and lu
Chase crime families.
Speaker 3 (01:05):
Patel also broke down some of the charges, the.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
Charges, and the arrest that were taken down across this
country range from wirefraud, money laundering, extortion, robbery, illegal gambling.
Speaker 1 (01:14):
US Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, Joseph Noceello,
also weighed in.
Speaker 4 (01:19):
My message to the defendants who've been rounded up today,
is this Your winning streak has ended.
Speaker 3 (01:26):
Your luck has run out.
Speaker 4 (01:28):
Violating the law is a losing proposition, and you can
bet on that.
Speaker 3 (01:34):
So a couple things. Let me break this down.
Speaker 1 (01:36):
The first case, which was called Operation Nothing but Net,
allegedly involved Rosier and five others using insider NBA information
for sports betting. So prosecutors say the group bet on
games based on when players plan to sit out or
fake injuries, with one example being when Rosier told a
(01:56):
friend before a Charlotte Hornets game that he planned to
leave early due to a supposed injury. That friend allegedly
shared the tip with others who placed more than two
hundred and fifty thousand dollars in prop bets. Razero scorees
four five points in under ten minutes before setting out,
matching the under bets and leading to big payouts for
(02:20):
those who knew in advance. And then you have allegations
the damon Jones leaked inside information about Lebron James's injury status.
Two sports betters before a February twenty twenty three game
prosecutor say Jones and a text urging someone to get
a big bet on Milwaukee tonight, telling them that James
would miss that night's matchup between the Lakers and the Box.
(02:42):
At the time, James hadn't been ruled out yet on
the NBA's public injury report. And then you've got the
second case, Operation Royal Flush, that involved a nationwide illegal
poker ring. Were pro athletes like Chauncey Billups. They were
used to lure high rollers to rigged games, and during
(03:03):
those games, there was this high tech equipment that was
used to rig them, X ray poker tables, modified shuffling machines,
hidden cameras, contact lenses that could read mark cards, and
prosecutors said the mafia families helped organize and enforce the games,
taking cuts of profits and collecting debts when victims refused
(03:26):
to pay. So we're gonna have a lot more on
this throughout the morning, and coming up at five thirty five,
we'll talk to Aaron Jacobson from The Patent Aaron Show
about all of this and its impact on the NBA
and really the sports world in general. Host of The
Patent Aaron Show on ninety five three w DAE Aaron Jacobson,
He's here to talk about this FBI gambling probe that
(03:47):
has rocked the NBA. So, Aaron, there's two parts to
this NBA illegal gambling story. You got the mafia backed
poker ring, which Portland Trail Blazer's coach Chauncey Billups was
allegedly involved in. And then you've got the sports betting ring,
which heat guard Terry Rozier was allegedly involved in. The
sports betting ring doesn't surprise me.
Speaker 5 (04:09):
I prefer the story of the mafia.
Speaker 1 (04:10):
The poker ring. That's what really peaked my interest. Chauncey Billups.
This is somebody who is a Hall of Famer, made
like over one hundred million dollars during his career. Dall
is he doing getting tied in with the with the mafia?
Speaker 5 (04:25):
How does it happen?
Speaker 6 (04:27):
Yeah? How like where along the way do you have
to decide? And is it because you're gambling yourself and
it becomes a problem. You're gambling, you know, millions of
dollars yourself. So you've got to be part of it
has to be. And then to think Chauncey Billets running
into circles with the you know, Gambinos and the Genevese
and the Geneviz, like you're like the crime These are
(04:47):
the crime families we watching in movies. Yeah, Goodfellas and
and you know the Godfather. This is the Godfather stuff.
Speaker 1 (04:54):
And the tech that they were using to rig these
games X ray poker tables, modified shuffling machine, watch camrage
contact lenses that could read marked car.
Speaker 5 (05:07):
You get that on Amazon. I want one of those?
Speaker 3 (05:10):
Crazy? Is that?
Speaker 1 (05:11):
But the sports betting thing, We've seen those reports before,
and as troubling as they are, they seem to be
relatively easy to spot because they involve players, and all
of a sudden there's like, you know, a ton of
money being put on on Terry Rosier and.
Speaker 6 (05:32):
In the game, no, it's it's it's you'll bet the
under on rebounds, you'll bet the under on assists. But
for people that like Terry Rozier and Terry's a good player,
you bet the over, You're screwed. So the mafia Chauncey
Billups story to Me, to you, to Joe sitting on
his couch and betting games. That means nothing. That's a
(05:53):
poker game with high stakes people like right, right, that's
millions of dollars that none of us are involved.
Speaker 3 (05:59):
It's more interesting because it's crazy.
Speaker 5 (06:01):
Yeah, it's a.
Speaker 6 (06:01):
Movie, like that's a movie. What Terry Rozier is doing
is more troubling for me because I'm a gambler. I'm
gambling like I'm gambling on rebounds. I'm a degenerate. I
like these bets. These are fun bets for me, whether
it's five dollars, ten dollars, whatever it is, and for
other people it's a lot more money. They the people
are losing and that's not right.
Speaker 3 (06:20):
Is the fix for that.
Speaker 1 (06:23):
When it comes to like player prop bets banning betting
on the under.
Speaker 6 (06:31):
Because you know what, I haven't thought about that, and
I was like, no, you can't take away my bets.
Speaker 5 (06:37):
And then I go, I don't bet the under.
Speaker 6 (06:39):
So I love that actually, and I'm stealing that idea
and taking it right over to Pat.
Speaker 1 (06:44):
Aaron because that because that is the issue with a
lot of these these players and a lot of these incidents,
it's it's the under.
Speaker 3 (06:52):
Can you explain that.
Speaker 5 (06:53):
I'll explain it. Yeah, because the under.
Speaker 6 (06:54):
Let's say a player, let's use rebounds for for instance,
Let's say the numbered in Vegas that they put up
is seven and a half rebounds. Let's say that player
gets three rebounds. We're in the third quarter, and he goes,
you know, I'm tied with these people. I have to
get the under. I cannot get the eight rebounds or
whatever it is, so I'm gonna my hamstring hurts or
(07:15):
I twisted an ankle, whatever it may be. You remove
yourself from the game. Those betters win, you win, You
got hurt, so you're not really playing poorly. But if
you are, if you take that equation out of it,
the only equation you have is for the over, which
means what they're gonna try harder, like they would have
to play harder. Now I don't like that either, because
it takes them out of the sequence of what we
(07:36):
see in a game, the natural flow of a game.
But but I don't think that players to what you're
saying here, I don't think players are gonna get involved
in these schemes if it has to do with them
getting the over, because you can't fix that like that.
If you're a great player. Even great players can't decide
how well they're going to play in a game.
Speaker 3 (07:53):
How much do you think?
Speaker 1 (07:54):
And we're joined by Aaron Jacobson Coast at the Pat
and Aaron Show on ninety five three WDA. How much
of this is is a big unique to the NBA,
Not that it can't happen in other sports, but in
the NFL, I mean it could, but boy, that locker room,
you're gonna go face everybody, uh you know, getting caught
up in something like that. Baseball, I mean, what are
(08:15):
you gonna try to fix the under on hits? It's
hard enough to get a base hit as it is.
Basketball is a little it's the easiest to fix it.
Speaker 3 (08:24):
Yeah right.
Speaker 6 (08:24):
Hockey, well, there's little ways you can and there's positions
you can Basketball, it can be everybody, right, all five
guys on the court, like you could. You could figure
out how to manipulate that. The coach could manipulate that.
But when you look at the other major sports, I
think it can happen, but you have to look at like, Okay, football,
it'd probably have to be the quarterback who'd have to
be manipulating how its the ball in his hand a lot.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
Yeah, the quarterback's not gonna want to, you know, help
with the under No, you know bet exactly.
Speaker 6 (08:52):
Here's where we've seen it in baseball. Betting is so
you can really get down to any you can bet anything.
So betting in baseball it's a lot of time. The
pictures I'm noticing and we're seeing the pictures specific like, hey,
first pitch of the inning, it's going to be a
ball and you can bet on that. You can bet
on that. You gotta be quick with it. Yeah, like
(09:13):
you can bet on that. So if you tell a
guy if you hey for third inning, right, sink one.
And there's guys who've been involved in this recently and
we've seen videos of them like submarine the ball into
the ground and it's quite.
Speaker 1 (09:25):
You wonder, yeah, what's going on there now? I did
think it was fascinating to watch. It was very amusing
to me on TV as many are covering the story.
The segment was sponsored by like fan Duel. I love it,
and then I was listening to a podcast and then
talking about it and immediately they go into a sponsor
(09:47):
that's a gambling operation. It's just it's intertwined where it's
intertwining sports. It's not going on.
Speaker 6 (09:52):
And that's why I'm glad that they made this public
showing of it, and I love like, why'd you do that?
Why do you have to do that? You have to
do that. You have to scare these players. These players
have to know that you're not just going to get
a slap on the wrist, You're gonna get purp walked that.
Speaker 1 (10:05):
I don't think anybody wants this to get out of
control because it's bad for the leagues. It's bad for Vegas,
it's bad for the gambling company, it's bad for everybody.
Speaker 3 (10:14):
If this starts a spiral, so books.
Speaker 5 (10:17):
Lose on that. By the way, if it's getting fixed,
the books lose.
Speaker 1 (10:20):
And I feel like when it's legalized, you have a
little bit more control because again, some of this stuff,
it's kind of noticeable because it's involving players, you know,
where you're like, wait a second, there was that amount
of money put on Terry Roseier, you know?
Speaker 3 (10:33):
Or or what's the.
Speaker 5 (10:37):
Isiah Hernstein He's not you know what I mean. I'm
betting on these guys, right, and this is me.
Speaker 6 (10:44):
It's affecting this guy, all right.
Speaker 1 (10:47):
Aaron Jacobs and Coast at the Pat and Aaron Show
on ninety five three w D A E with Us
this morning, Aaron.
Speaker 3 (10:52):
Thanks so much. Carefully, money people took a couple of things. Uh,
that whole.
Speaker 1 (10:58):
Mafia backed poker scheme that Chauncey Billups, the head coach
of the Portland Trailblazers, that he was involved in about
seven million bucks that's how much it brought in. Again,
if you're Chouncey Billups, I'm assuming you know he gets
a cut of that. He made over one hundred million
dollars during his career. Now you see really successful people
(11:23):
in life, people who have done well in their professions,
who have made a lot of money, have all kinds
of problems, just like all of us, you know, addiction problems,
all kinds of different issues. But it's still hard to
understand when you've got that much money in the bank,
(11:45):
why you would roll the dice like that, take that
kind of a risk. Terry Rozier ninety six million dollars
guaranteed contract. You you do something like that with a
prop bet so your buddies can make a couple hundred
thousand dollars.
Speaker 3 (12:05):
I mean again, it's tough.
Speaker 1 (12:07):
I'd love to sit down with them and ask them question,
find out what is it that you were thinking? Is
it like the rush the adrenaline. Is that what's going on?
I mean, maybe that could be part of it. But
look in terms of the overall impact on the NBA
and sports betting, I don't think this really changes anything.
(12:29):
I think it would be a much bigger deal if
you had someone like Lebron James directly involved. Now he
was indirectly involved in the sense that that one individual
who was charged, Damon Jones, former NBA player, he sent
a text urging someone to get a big bet on
Milwaukee tonight. This was back before a twenty twenty three game,
(12:51):
telling them that James was going to miss that night's
game between the Lakers and the Box. At the time,
James hadn't been ruled out yet on the NBA's public
injury So basically some inside information. But if you had
you know, one of the big big stars of the
league now, Chauncey Billups is an NBA Hall of Famer,
but a lot of people, you know, your average person
(13:13):
across the country who doesn't really follow basketball that much,
I don't think they really know much about Chauncey Billups,
but like if it was Lebron James, that would be different.
I think between the interests that the leagues have and
the interest that these sports betting operations have in keeping
things on the up and up so people keep betting,
so people keep watching the game and believing that it's legit.
(13:36):
I think that's why you see a lot of oversight
over all of this, a lot of scrutiny, and you'll
continue to see that. Steven A. Smith brought up yesterday
that the timing was suspect to him, he thought that
this was President Trump getting back at the NBA and
(13:57):
its players. I will say the timing of it in
the sense that it's literally the opening week for the NBA.
This was coming after Opening Night. Chauncey Phillips coached that
opening night game for the Portland Trailblazers, was arrested the
next morning. Terry Rozier was in uniform for the Miami
(14:18):
Heat and their opening night game and was arrested at
the hotel. He didn't end up playing in the game,
but I do think that timing there is interesting. But
in terms of you know whether or not this was
something that the President Trump was directing to have come
out right now. I'm a little suspicious of that. And
(14:38):
this was also an investigation that preceded the Trump administration,
that has been going on for a long time. So
there's a lot more I think we're going to learn
in the coming days and weeks about all of this.
Speaker 3 (14:48):
More shoes to drop.
Speaker 4 (14:49):
The Ryan Gorman Show five to nine, every weekday morning
on news Radio two UFLA
Yesterday morning, FBI Director Cash Patel announced the current and
former NBA players and coaches are facing charges in connection
with federal investigations into gambling.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
This is an illegal gambling operation and sports rigging operation
that spanned the course of years. The FBI led a
coordinative takedown across eleven states to arrest over thirty individuals
today responsible.
Speaker 3 (00:22):
For this case.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
Federal agents arrested Portland Trailblazers coach Chauncey Billups, Miami heat
guard Terry Rozier, and former NBA player Damon Jones in
connection with two major illegal gambling operations. The FBI says
Billups was tied to a mafia backed poker ring, Rosier
to a sports betting ring, and Jones to both. The
(00:45):
NBA announced that Rosier and Billups have been placed on
immediate leave from their teams. Battel went on to name
the crime families tied to the case.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
We also entered and executed a system of justice against
La Cassanos to include the Bonano, Gambino, Genevesi, and lu
Chase crime families.
Speaker 3 (01:05):
Patel also broke down some of the charges, the.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
Charges, and the arrest that were taken down across this
country range from wirefraud, money laundering, extortion, robbery, illegal gambling.
Speaker 1 (01:14):
US Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, Joseph Noceello,
also weighed in.
Speaker 4 (01:19):
My message to the defendants who've been rounded up today,
is this Your winning streak has ended.
Speaker 3 (01:26):
Your luck has run out.
Speaker 4 (01:28):
Violating the law is a losing proposition, and you can
bet on that.
Speaker 3 (01:34):
So a couple things. Let me break this down.
Speaker 1 (01:36):
The first case, which was called Operation Nothing but Net,
allegedly involved Rosier and five others using insider NBA information
for sports betting. So prosecutors say the group bet on
games based on when players plan to sit out or
fake injuries, with one example being when Rosier told a
(01:56):
friend before a Charlotte Hornets game that he planned to
leave early due to a supposed injury. That friend allegedly
shared the tip with others who placed more than two
hundred and fifty thousand dollars in prop bets. Razero scorees
four five points in under ten minutes before setting out,
matching the under bets and leading to big payouts for
(02:20):
those who knew in advance. And then you have allegations
the damon Jones leaked inside information about Lebron James's injury status.
Two sports betters before a February twenty twenty three game
prosecutor say Jones and a text urging someone to get
a big bet on Milwaukee tonight, telling them that James
would miss that night's matchup between the Lakers and the Box.
(02:42):
At the time, James hadn't been ruled out yet on
the NBA's public injury report. And then you've got the
second case, Operation Royal Flush, that involved a nationwide illegal
poker ring. Were pro athletes like Chauncey Billups. They were
used to lure high rollers to rigged games, and during
(03:03):
those games, there was this high tech equipment that was
used to rig them, X ray poker tables, modified shuffling machines,
hidden cameras, contact lenses that could read mark cards, and
prosecutors said the mafia families helped organize and enforce the games,
taking cuts of profits and collecting debts when victims refused
(03:26):
to pay. So we're gonna have a lot more on
this throughout the morning, and coming up at five thirty five,
we'll talk to Aaron Jacobson from The Patent Aaron Show
about all of this and its impact on the NBA
and really the sports world in general. Host of The
Patent Aaron Show on ninety five three w DAE Aaron Jacobson,
He's here to talk about this FBI gambling probe that
(03:47):
has rocked the NBA. So, Aaron, there's two parts to
this NBA illegal gambling story. You got the mafia backed
poker ring, which Portland Trail Blazer's coach Chauncey Billups was
allegedly involved in. And then you've got the sports betting ring,
which heat guard Terry Rozier was allegedly involved in. The
sports betting ring doesn't surprise me.
Speaker 5 (04:09):
I prefer the story of the mafia.
Speaker 1 (04:10):
The poker ring. That's what really peaked my interest. Chauncey Billups.
This is somebody who is a Hall of Famer, made
like over one hundred million dollars during his career. Dall
is he doing getting tied in with the with the mafia?
Speaker 5 (04:25):
How does it happen?
Speaker 6 (04:27):
Yeah? How like where along the way do you have
to decide? And is it because you're gambling yourself and
it becomes a problem. You're gambling, you know, millions of
dollars yourself. So you've got to be part of it
has to be. And then to think Chauncey Billets running
into circles with the you know, Gambinos and the Genevese
and the Geneviz, like you're like the crime These are
(04:47):
the crime families we watching in movies. Yeah, Goodfellas and
and you know the Godfather. This is the Godfather stuff.
Speaker 1 (04:54):
And the tech that they were using to rig these
games X ray poker tables, modified shuffling machine, watch camrage
contact lenses that could read marked car.
Speaker 5 (05:07):
You get that on Amazon. I want one of those?
Speaker 3 (05:10):
Crazy? Is that?
Speaker 1 (05:11):
But the sports betting thing, We've seen those reports before,
and as troubling as they are, they seem to be
relatively easy to spot because they involve players, and all
of a sudden there's like, you know, a ton of
money being put on on Terry Rosier and.
Speaker 6 (05:32):
In the game, no, it's it's it's you'll bet the
under on rebounds, you'll bet the under on assists. But
for people that like Terry Rozier and Terry's a good player,
you bet the over, You're screwed. So the mafia Chauncey
Billups story to Me, to you, to Joe sitting on
his couch and betting games. That means nothing. That's a
(05:53):
poker game with high stakes people like right, right, that's
millions of dollars that none of us are involved.
Speaker 3 (05:59):
It's more interesting because it's crazy.
Speaker 5 (06:01):
Yeah, it's a.
Speaker 6 (06:01):
Movie, like that's a movie. What Terry Rozier is doing
is more troubling for me because I'm a gambler. I'm
gambling like I'm gambling on rebounds. I'm a degenerate. I
like these bets. These are fun bets for me, whether
it's five dollars, ten dollars, whatever it is, and for
other people it's a lot more money. They the people
are losing and that's not right.
Speaker 3 (06:20):
Is the fix for that.
Speaker 1 (06:23):
When it comes to like player prop bets banning betting
on the under.
Speaker 6 (06:31):
Because you know what, I haven't thought about that, and
I was like, no, you can't take away my bets.
Speaker 5 (06:37):
And then I go, I don't bet the under.
Speaker 6 (06:39):
So I love that actually, and I'm stealing that idea
and taking it right over to Pat.
Speaker 1 (06:44):
Aaron because that because that is the issue with a
lot of these these players and a lot of these incidents,
it's it's the under.
Speaker 3 (06:52):
Can you explain that.
Speaker 5 (06:53):
I'll explain it. Yeah, because the under.
Speaker 6 (06:54):
Let's say a player, let's use rebounds for for instance,
Let's say the numbered in Vegas that they put up
is seven and a half rebounds. Let's say that player
gets three rebounds. We're in the third quarter, and he goes,
you know, I'm tied with these people. I have to
get the under. I cannot get the eight rebounds or
whatever it is, so I'm gonna my hamstring hurts or
(07:15):
I twisted an ankle, whatever it may be. You remove
yourself from the game. Those betters win, you win, You
got hurt, so you're not really playing poorly. But if
you are, if you take that equation out of it,
the only equation you have is for the over, which
means what they're gonna try harder, like they would have
to play harder. Now I don't like that either, because
it takes them out of the sequence of what we
(07:36):
see in a game, the natural flow of a game.
But but I don't think that players to what you're
saying here, I don't think players are gonna get involved
in these schemes if it has to do with them
getting the over, because you can't fix that like that.
If you're a great player. Even great players can't decide
how well they're going to play in a game.
Speaker 3 (07:53):
How much do you think?
Speaker 1 (07:54):
And we're joined by Aaron Jacobson Coast at the Pat
and Aaron Show on ninety five three WDA. How much
of this is is a big unique to the NBA,
Not that it can't happen in other sports, but in
the NFL, I mean it could, but boy, that locker room,
you're gonna go face everybody, uh you know, getting caught
up in something like that. Baseball, I mean, what are
(08:15):
you gonna try to fix the under on hits? It's
hard enough to get a base hit as it is.
Basketball is a little it's the easiest to fix it.
Speaker 3 (08:24):
Yeah right.
Speaker 6 (08:24):
Hockey, well, there's little ways you can and there's positions
you can Basketball, it can be everybody, right, all five
guys on the court, like you could. You could figure
out how to manipulate that. The coach could manipulate that.
But when you look at the other major sports, I
think it can happen, but you have to look at like, Okay, football,
it'd probably have to be the quarterback who'd have to
be manipulating how its the ball in his hand a lot.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
Yeah, the quarterback's not gonna want to, you know, help
with the under No, you know bet exactly.
Speaker 6 (08:52):
Here's where we've seen it in baseball. Betting is so
you can really get down to any you can bet anything.
So betting in baseball it's a lot of time. The
pictures I'm noticing and we're seeing the pictures specific like, hey,
first pitch of the inning, it's going to be a
ball and you can bet on that. You can bet
on that. You gotta be quick with it. Yeah, like
(09:13):
you can bet on that. So if you tell a
guy if you hey for third inning, right, sink one.
And there's guys who've been involved in this recently and
we've seen videos of them like submarine the ball into
the ground and it's quite.
Speaker 1 (09:25):
You wonder, yeah, what's going on there now? I did
think it was fascinating to watch. It was very amusing
to me on TV as many are covering the story.
The segment was sponsored by like fan Duel. I love it,
and then I was listening to a podcast and then
talking about it and immediately they go into a sponsor
(09:47):
that's a gambling operation. It's just it's intertwined where it's
intertwining sports. It's not going on.
Speaker 6 (09:52):
And that's why I'm glad that they made this public
showing of it, and I love like, why'd you do that?
Why do you have to do that? You have to
do that. You have to scare these players. These players
have to know that you're not just going to get
a slap on the wrist, You're gonna get purp walked that.
Speaker 1 (10:05):
I don't think anybody wants this to get out of
control because it's bad for the leagues. It's bad for Vegas,
it's bad for the gambling company, it's bad for everybody.
Speaker 3 (10:14):
If this starts a spiral, so books.
Speaker 5 (10:17):
Lose on that. By the way, if it's getting fixed,
the books lose.
Speaker 1 (10:20):
And I feel like when it's legalized, you have a
little bit more control because again, some of this stuff,
it's kind of noticeable because it's involving players, you know,
where you're like, wait a second, there was that amount
of money put on Terry Roseier, you know?
Speaker 3 (10:33):
Or or what's the.
Speaker 5 (10:37):
Isiah Hernstein He's not you know what I mean. I'm
betting on these guys, right, and this is me.
Speaker 6 (10:44):
It's affecting this guy, all right.
Speaker 1 (10:47):
Aaron Jacobs and Coast at the Pat and Aaron Show
on ninety five three w D A E with Us
this morning, Aaron.
Speaker 3 (10:52):
Thanks so much. Carefully, money people took a couple of things. Uh,
that whole.
Speaker 1 (10:58):
Mafia backed poker scheme that Chauncey Billups, the head coach
of the Portland Trailblazers, that he was involved in about
seven million bucks that's how much it brought in. Again,
if you're Chouncey Billups, I'm assuming you know he gets
a cut of that. He made over one hundred million
dollars during his career. Now you see really successful people
(11:23):
in life, people who have done well in their professions,
who have made a lot of money, have all kinds
of problems, just like all of us, you know, addiction problems,
all kinds of different issues. But it's still hard to
understand when you've got that much money in the bank,
(11:45):
why you would roll the dice like that, take that
kind of a risk. Terry Rozier ninety six million dollars
guaranteed contract. You you do something like that with a
prop bet so your buddies can make a couple hundred
thousand dollars.
Speaker 3 (12:05):
I mean again, it's tough.
Speaker 1 (12:07):
I'd love to sit down with them and ask them question,
find out what is it that you were thinking? Is
it like the rush the adrenaline. Is that what's going on?
I mean, maybe that could be part of it. But
look in terms of the overall impact on the NBA
and sports betting, I don't think this really changes anything.
(12:29):
I think it would be a much bigger deal if
you had someone like Lebron James directly involved. Now he
was indirectly involved in the sense that that one individual
who was charged, Damon Jones, former NBA player, he sent
a text urging someone to get a big bet on
Milwaukee tonight. This was back before a twenty twenty three game,
(12:51):
telling them that James was going to miss that night's
game between the Lakers and the Box. At the time,
James hadn't been ruled out yet on the NBA's public
injury So basically some inside information. But if you had
you know, one of the big big stars of the
league now, Chauncey Billups is an NBA Hall of Famer,
but a lot of people, you know, your average person
(13:13):
across the country who doesn't really follow basketball that much,
I don't think they really know much about Chauncey Billups,
but like if it was Lebron James, that would be different.
I think between the interests that the leagues have and
the interest that these sports betting operations have in keeping
things on the up and up so people keep betting,
so people keep watching the game and believing that it's legit.
(13:36):
I think that's why you see a lot of oversight
over all of this, a lot of scrutiny, and you'll
continue to see that. Steven A. Smith brought up yesterday
that the timing was suspect to him, he thought that
this was President Trump getting back at the NBA and
(13:57):
its players. I will say the timing of it in
the sense that it's literally the opening week for the NBA.
This was coming after Opening Night. Chauncey Phillips coached that
opening night game for the Portland Trailblazers, was arrested the
next morning. Terry Rozier was in uniform for the Miami
(14:18):
Heat and their opening night game and was arrested at
the hotel. He didn't end up playing in the game,
but I do think that timing there is interesting. But
in terms of you know whether or not this was
something that the President Trump was directing to have come
out right now. I'm a little suspicious of that. And
(14:38):
this was also an investigation that preceded the Trump administration,
that has been going on for a long time. So
there's a lot more I think we're going to learn
in the coming days and weeks about all of this.
Speaker 3 (14:48):
More shoes to drop.
Speaker 4 (14:49):
The Ryan Gorman Show five to nine, every weekday morning
on news Radio two UFLA
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