Trail Blazers coach and NBA Hall of Famer Chauncey Billups and Heat guard Terry Rozier have been arrested in connection with an FBI sports betting and poker probe, according to ESPN.
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FBI director Kash Patel and the Eastern District of New York will hold a press conference Friday to further discuss the case and “numerous arrests in illegal sports betting and poker games schemes,” including two indictments, according to a press release.
Billups, 49, has been charged in an illegal poker scheme linked to organised crime, sources told The Post.
Rozier, 31, previously had been under investigation for unusual betting activity during his time with the Hornets, specifically a March 2023 contest.
However, the NBA did not find any violation.
“In March 2023, the NBA was alerted to unusual betting activity related to Terry Rozier’s performance in a game between Charlotte and New Orleans,” NBA spokesman Mike Bass said earlier this year.
“The league conducted an investigation and did not find a violation of NBA rules. We are now aware of an investigation by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York related to this matter and have been co-operating with that investigation.”
During a March 23, 2023 contest against the Pelicans, Rozier exited the game after playing the first 9:36 and did not return due to a foot issue in what would be his final game of the season.
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He tallied five points, four rebounds, two assists and one steal in that time, and one X user posted at the time how they allegedly had been tipped off that Rozier would exit early.
That knowledge would affect prop betting, where gamblers bet on a player’s statistics for a game.
An “unexpected” amount of bets came in on Rozier’s Under for that game, per ESPN, which resulted in some sportsbooks preventing further wagers on his prop lines.
Rozier did not comment at the time about the matter, and his lawyer, Jim Trusty, told ESPN at the time that his client met several times with NBA and FBI officials in 2023 regarding the case.
“On advice from counsel, I can’t answer any questions about that matter,” he said in January.
The former Louisville star did not play in Miami’s season-opening 125-121 loss to the Magic on Thursday despite being available.
He was arrested at a hotel in Orlando on Thursday morning, per ESPN.
Rozier played for the Hornets from 2019-24 before being acquired by Miami during the 2023-24 season, and is in the final season of a four-year, $96.3 million deal.
Billups, a former NBA star who played in the league from 1997-2014, just started his fifth season guiding the Trail Blazers.
He was arrested Thursday morning local time in Oregon, one day after guiding Portland during its 118-114 season-opening loss to the Timberwolves. He owns a 117-212 mark leading the franchise.
Billups spent most of his career with the Pistons, while also suiting up for the Nuggets, Timberwolves, Clippers, Celtics, Raptors and Knicks to earn his way into the Hall of Fame last year.
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The NBA has been at the center of recent sports gambling probes in the aftermath of ex-Raptor Jontay Porter receiving a lifelong suspension for manipulating his prop markets and betting on games.
“A league investigation found that Porter violated league rules by disclosing confidential information to sports bettors, limiting his own participation in one or more games for betting purposes, and betting on NBA game,” the NBA said in its release announcing his ban.
NBA commissioner Adam Silver said earlier this week on the “Pat McAfee Show” that the NBA is working with sportsbooks while legalised betting continues to grow.
“We’ve asked some of our partners to pull back some of the prop bets, especially when they’re on two-way players, guys who don’t have the same stake in the competition, where it’s too easy to manipulate something, which seems otherwise small and inconsequential to the overall score,” Silver said Tuesday.
“Maybe a couple rebounds that some players gets or something. We’re trying to put in place, and learning as we go and working with the betting companies, some additional control to prevent some of that manipulation.”
Former Pistons guard Malik Beasley also came under investigation fro the U.S. District Attorney’s Office regarding allegations of gambling on games and prop betting.
A source told The Post in August that he was still a subject in a federal probe, although Beasley has yet to be charged with any wrong doing.
This article first appeared on The New York Postand was reproduced with permission.
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