In a major crackdown by US police, Portland NBA coach Chauncey Billups and Miami Heat player Terry Rozier were arrested Thursday for their alleged involvement in two separate illegal gambling cases.

Chauncey Billups (49), who won the NBA championship with the Detroit Pistons in 2004 and is now the coach of the Trail Blazers, was arrested - along with around thirty others - for his "alleged participation in a national network of rigged poker games" linked to the Sicilian mafia Cosa Nostra, explained the federal prosecutor for the Eastern District of New York, Joseph Nocella, during a press conference.

Terry Rozier, 31, was arrested in connection with a case of rigged sports betting based on the sharing of "confidential information," described by the federal prosecutor as "one of the most daring sports corruption schemes since online sports betting became widely legalized in the United States."

Both were "immediately suspended" by the NBA, which said it takes "these allegations with the utmost seriousness."

In total, "we are talking about tens of millions of dollars" in damages, stressed FBI chief Kash Patel.

Chauncey Billups is due to appear in court later today in Portland, Oregon, as is Terry Rozier in Orlando, Florida, US authorities said.

The latter defended himself via a statement from his lawyer, James Trusty: "Terry is not a gambler, but he is not afraid to fight and he is eager to win this fight."

A former NBA player and assistant coach, Damon Jones (49 years old), close to star LeBron James, is implicated in both cases, notably for having disclosed internal information (starters, injuries) before Los Angeles Lakers games in February 2023 and January 2024.

According to The Athletic, Jones was then a personal trainer of the "King" and enjoyed privileged access to the Lakers, without being an employee of the famous Californian franchise.

- Technological cheating -

In the first case, investigators explained that they had uncovered a system dating back to 2019 of "technological cheating to fix poker games across the United States," from the upscale Hamptons region, near New York, to Las Vegas, via Manhattan and Miami.

Among their "highly sophisticated" range: lenses and glasses capable of reading inscriptions invisible to the naked eye on cards, X-ray tools allowing the recognition of face-down cards, rigged shuffling machines...

"The defendants defrauded the victims of tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars per game," the federal prosecutor further explained.

The sports betting scandal specifically concerns the individual performances of players from the Trail Blazers, the Lakers, but also the Charlotte Hornets and the Toronto Raptors, over a period from late 2022 to early 2024, Nocella said.

New York City police officer Jessica Tisch detailed how bets were placed "on whether players would score fewer points, grab fewer rebounds, or make fewer assists using information that was not yet public."

- Banned for life -

"For example, on March 23, 2023, in Charlotte, Terry Rozier (then a Hornets player) informed relatives that he planned to leave the game early with a suspected injury. With this information, members of the group bet more than $200,000 on his statistics. Rozier left after only 9 minutes, and the bets generated tens of thousands of dollars in profit," she described.

In January 2025, the NBA said it had been investigating "unusual betting" related to Rozier since 2023, but found "no rule violations."

The league cooperated with investigators, U.S. authorities said Thursday.

Chauncey Billups, a former Detroit point guard who retired in 2014, has been coaching Portland since 2021. Terry Rozier has been in the NBA since 2015 and played for the Boston Celtics and Hornets before joining the Heat.

Former NBA player with the Toronto Raptors, Jontay Porter, was banned for life in 2024 for enabling sports betting to be fixed and faces a prison sentence in the judicial aspect.