Major FBI Gambling Bust Takes Down NBA Stars and the Mafia

00:00:02
Speaker 1: Hey there, folks. It is Thursday, October twenty third, and we just spent forty five minutes repeatedly screaming at the TV say what now, because we just watched a press conference in which they announced historic indictments involving the mob money, illegal gambling, current and former NBA players, and one current head coach in the NBA. And with that, folks, welcome to this episode of Amy and TJ. We got a breaking news alert that something was coming. It was before the press conference. Then the press conference started, and we said, holy hell, is this for real?

00:00:44
Speaker 2: Well, full disclosure here. You read the initial headline about NBA players and gambling, and I kind of glazed over and I just was wow, I guess that's a story. Didn't seem like anything that I would be interested in until the press conference started, and then it was as if I was watching a Hollywood movie, which I know everyone is saying, but truly, there's no other way to describe the information that came out, the people who were involved, and the amount of law enforcement intra agencies all standing collectively together to announce this truly shocking, historic I don't want to say arrest arrests, what thirty plus thirty four was the last count I heard, but they said and counting potentially.

00:01:29
Speaker 1: Yes, folks, So we are talking about them now breaking up a year's long scheme in which gambling is involved and essentially bilking players out of what they say are millions and millions of dollars. So what we're talking about here, yes, Cash Bettel, You had the New York Police Department commissioner as a part of this. US attorneys involved. There were so many agencies standing up there to make the announcement of two cases in which wirefraud, money laundering, extortion, robbery, illegal gambling among some of the charges. They say this happened in nine states in the early morning hours with the coordination of all of these hundreds of agents, and they went and arrested thirty plus defendants, and among them an NBA Hall of Famer and current NBA coach Chauncey Billups, current coach of the Portland Trailblazers, former players involved, and one current member of the Miami Heat and Ropes. These look this is all kind of loosely connected, but also not really. But they announced essentially two major cases today, two major operations, two different indictments, and.

00:02:40
Speaker 2: Yet they were. It was interesting how connected they were. But yes, two separate cases. One was called Operation Nothing but Bet. How do you like that playing off of nothing but Net?

00:02:51
Speaker 1: You like it? Fine?

00:02:53
Speaker 2: It's for FBI agents. I guess that's a good one. But that was the operation on illegal betting on NBA games using insider information. Notably, I'm still learning some of the lingo here, but this is actually called prop betting.

00:03:11
Speaker 1: Yes, you are familiar with it from Super Bowl, probably the only time you start thinking about prop bets. What we're talking about is not just betting on who wins or who loses the game, but all the side bets. Right, how long is the national anthem? That's a prop bet at the Super Bowl? How many yards will this player, the quarterback put up?

00:03:30
Speaker 2: Or how many points will a player score?

00:03:32
Speaker 1: So people love betting prop bets because you essentially say, all right, the prop is twenty, he's going to score twenty. I'll take the under or I'll take the over. So yeah, it's a fun, kind of an easy way to do your gambling without necessarily being hardcore. And this is prime for cheating because if you can get somebody a player to you know fake and injury should do a little something funny.

00:03:55
Speaker 2: You should mention that because that is the allegation and the charge against current Miami Heat guard Terry Rosier. He was arrested this morning in Orlando, I believe where he had been playing.

00:04:07
Speaker 1: Correct, Well, he had a game last night. He dressed but did not play. Coach's decision. They say, so who knows that they saw something like this coming. Do you like the other name of the other operation better? Yeah?

00:04:17
Speaker 2: The other operation is called Operation Royal Flush. And this was about an underground rigged I mean when you hear about how they rigged this game, or how authorities say they rigged this game, it is jaw dropping. But apparently there were members of the mob rigging illegal poker games, and so they were operated by LaCOSA Nostra our things Sicilian mafia here in America. Four of the five families are implicated in this, but notably so is Hall of Famer as you mentioned, and current coach called mister big Shot Chauncey Phillips.

00:04:57
Speaker 1: Has a long and storied history, but he is a Hall of Famer. Just went to the Hall of Fame last year. Actually, the folks arrested here you mentioned the crime families. I think it came maybe a surprise to some people that these folks are still up and running, right.

00:05:11
Speaker 2: I thought these were families of legend past and not currently operating and flourishing, so to speak. It seems like something that you again just watching a movie or reading a crime novel, but not something that's currently going on. But yeah, when they start naming family names like Gambino, Lukesi, genovesei Banano, all of those names, those family names, those Italian names connected to the mafia are all should be pretty familiar to most people.

00:05:38
Speaker 1: Gambino was probably the most famous out there, given I mean, John Gotty was the head of that family for a while with just I mean, that's a classic, historic, storied family. And to think that they are still in ball. So yes, folks were talking about those mob families are alleged to have been in bed with some current and former NBA players in the current coach to build folks out of possibly millions of dollars. So all of this happened in the early morning hours these arrests. They were able to keep this quiet, which is fairly impressive given that they have hundreds of agents and agencies, several agencies involved. So Chelncey Billups, you didn't know the name initially, I don't think. I don't know if you would know the face when you first saw it. But we can't really overstate how big of a deal and big of a career he has had in the NBA.

00:06:27
Speaker 2: You'd be able to obviously give that perspective that I could not. But I know that he's the current coach of the Portland Trailblazers. But when I started reading about who this guy was, I mean, yes, he was called mister big shot for a reason.

00:06:40
Speaker 1: Yeah, seventeen years. You hear anybody played seventeen years in the NBA. They obviously were pretty good. But he won a championship with the Pistons in two thousand and four. He stopped that team, stopped what they thought was going to be a three peat by Kobe and Shaq. Wow. With the Lakers, yes, so they win this. He was the MVP of the Finals. Let you know, on the biggest stage, he shows up. He was an NBA All Star, five time NBA All Star. His jersey is retired in Detroit, and he is a Hall of Famer. Just went into the Hall of Fame last year, and he yes is the current coach of the Portland Trail Blazers, who started their seat the NBA season just kicked off. Had two glorious nights of games.

00:07:24
Speaker 2: I saw a picture from him last night. Correct they lost to the Minnesota I'm so bad Vikings. I'm terrible with No, that's wrong Timberwolves. I knew this sport.

00:07:39
Speaker 1: Is not my Jim. I knew I was going to get a roam. So that's fine sport, but it's the same city. It's fine.

00:07:47
Speaker 2: But yes, when you start to see he was on the court last night seemingly unsuspecting of what was going to The loss was the least thing he should be worried about this morning when he woke up, Yes, to find himself under arrest. He along with Terry Rogier and Damon Jones, we have to talk about him to all have hearings this afternoon.

00:08:09
Speaker 1: So yes, we are going to hear something, probably not necessarily much, but going to be making an appearance. Not Terry Rogier. If you don't know who this kid is either as a kid, but he's been in the league ten plus years now. He was drafted sixteen overall by Boston. That's lets you know how good of a player he was sixteen overall is a big deal. He played at Louisville in his college days. He ended up going from Boston was he was a role player to Charlotte where he flourished, started averaging about twenty points a game, and then he went to Miami and he's been there since twenty twenty three. This is a guy who is on the last year of a four year, ninety six million dollar contracts. So a lot of people will scratch their heads. Why the hell is he involved in trying to make a few bucks in a legal gameplay.

00:08:54
Speaker 2: It's insane. I mean, he makes twenty plus million dollars a year. Someone was pointing out because according to the FBI, there was a particular date, I believe in March of twenty twenty three, where he is accused of feigning an injury to get out of a game early to then skew the bets on him. Those prop bets. We were just talking about how many points he would score in the game. But they said the money that was made was around two hundred thousand dollars on that, which is about and he had to split it with the folks who made the money. But apparently this is small change. This is like pennies to you and me. So it makes no sense why he would put his reputation, his freedom, and certainly his NBA career on the line for something as small as that.

00:09:40
Speaker 1: Yeah, it doesn't sound very bright, but these are just allegations. At this point we have heard from his attorney. We'll read that here at the end. The other name of note again might not be one you know, but you might recognize the face because he was on TV a whole lot, because he was next to Lebron James a whole lot, like Damon Jones. He did have a ten plus year career in the league, but he played notably with Lebron in some of Lebron's early days there in Cleveland, and he was an assistant coach in twenty sixteen when Cleveland won that championship over the Warriors, was in that arena and covered that team on awful lot.

00:10:15
Speaker 2: And he's being accused of being a part of this mafia scandal Royal Flush Chauncey Phillips, the Royal Flush investigation.

00:10:22
Speaker 1: All right, So let's explain what this alleged involvement by Billups and jones Is. And this is where things robes get absolutely wacky. First of all, yes, these were rigged poker games. Allegedly they were playing a part of Now these big name guys, somebody like Chauncey Billups, according to authorities, were referred to as face cards. They were the celebrities who were sitting at the table, and they were kind of there to distract the fish. The fish is the target that they are trying to essentially rob, So everybody at the table is in on it, the dealers in on it, everybody except the fish. But that wasn't just all. They use some technology that I don't even think they did an Oceans eleven some of this.

00:11:05
Speaker 2: Stuff, right, I mean, it sounded like something out of an Ocean's eleven movie, where apparently they had custom shuffling machines that could read the order of the cards. They had hidden cameras built into tables and chandeliers that they could see information that you're not supposed to see and then pass them along to the player's poker chip trays that could secretly read cards, special contact lenses that could read cards that I've got that freaked me out. X Ray table that could read the cards when they were faced down.

00:11:39
Speaker 1: Again, what this is a real operation. They really invested in this thing. Also, they had shuffling machines. They said, these were just regular commercial you can get them on the market off the shelf, is how we refer to it. Shuffling machines that could read the cards. But they would then predict who at the table would have the best hand. They could predict this. So this is what happens with all that information. It's relayed back to what they call the quarterback, who was not on site. Then the quarterback would take that info and relay it back to the people at the table who worked in coordination to cheat the fish.

00:12:17
Speaker 2: And the fish were basically high rollers, the people who had the money, who wanted to play, and what they thought was a fair illegal game because the game itself was conducted illegally, but they thought that these were fair games.

00:12:33
Speaker 1: Hey, if you can't trust the criminal, what are you gonna do?

00:12:37
Speaker 2: Did they know that the mafia was involved in setting up any of these games? I'm curious. I'm even thinking from like the NBA coach and former coach, former player's point of view, how scary or is it exciting to know that you're now in bed with, so to speak, with the mafia like that is just some crazy, scary stuff that a successful person you wouldn't think would want to be involved with.

00:13:05
Speaker 1: Yeah, and they have not watched all of those mob documentaries.

00:13:09
Speaker 2: It doesn't end well.

00:13:10
Speaker 1: You never want to be in business with the mom You just.

00:13:13
Speaker 2: Don't, especially if you don't have to be. I understand that financially, somehow you're I don't know, backed into a corner.

00:13:20
Speaker 1: This was not them, Yeah, this was not that case at all. Now you were mentioning this incident as well, having to do with Terry Rogier. Again, terror Rogier is part of it was announced today, but a different indictment from Chauncey Phillips. He's alleged to have been a part of this scheme operation nothing but bet that involved player performances. Now he would use, according to authorities, inside information he might have and passed that along and then folks would alter their prop bets. Now robes this through me. They announced that involved players from teams from Charlotte, Portland, the Lakers, and Toronto. Now didn't say that necessarily all these plays were in on it, but more so that some other folks might have had inside information that they passed along involving those players. So I want to be clear. They named those teams but didn't say there are players on all those teams who were involved.

00:14:13
Speaker 2: Could have just been someone adjacent to the team or someone who was who had that was privy to that type of information that could be passed along then to folks placing bets.

00:14:23
Speaker 1: But please tell this is the story you got to hear, and I just wanted to do it in their roads line by line for how the New York Police of Army Commissioner explained Terry Rogier's involvement.

00:14:34
Speaker 2: All right, So this is from the NYPD commissioner. 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 Charlotte Hornets, allegedly let others close to him know that he planned to leave the game early with a supposed injury. Using that information, members of the group placed more than two hundred thousand dollars in wagers on his under statistics. Rogier exited the game after just nine minutes, and those bets paid out, generating tens of thousands of dollars in profits. The proceeds 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.

00:15:24
Speaker 1: That's going to be the biggest problem for the NBA. If you, integrity of the game is everything. If there is any suggestion that players on the field are altering their performance for the sake of gambling, you are going to have the biggest scandal ever.

00:15:44
Speaker 2: See it's so funny because I know that this. You love the NBA, You love the game, and that was my number one question to you. What do you think this does to the integrity of the game. This is they just opened their season. There's so much excitement and fanfare and victoriously.

00:16:03
Speaker 1: I mean, it was a great launch to the season. A boy, you know Chuck, he's over on ESPN nine. That was a big opening. The first game was a double overtime thriller. This was a great start to the season. And now this is the season. This will dog them the entire season because now you got to look out there every time somebody doesn't play every time somebody is off a little bit, everybody's going to be under investigation by the public. I mean correct, this is the scary. Wait, you have a player who cheated and possibly changed the outcome of an NBA game. That is the biggest disaster they've had cheating scandals involving referee back in the day, Donovan I think was his name. And then like last year, another player got in trouble for this, but he wasn't a big time player when the big name player kind of went away, and this is everything.

00:16:55
Speaker 2: This is everything. And look, and I am not belittling in any way the amount of money that was lost here, But when you think about the individuals who are purported to have participated, you're talking about individuals who make and we've talked about this, just tens of millions of dollars per year, seven million dollars in total losses to them, and in the scheme of things, with the perspective of all the money being earned, that doesn't even seem like much and certainly doesn't seem worth what Now, not only will these individual folks be facing but as you point out, the entire league itself is now dealing with something all to do with seven million dollars cash, but that.

00:17:43
Speaker 1: Was they put that number in the indictment, but cash hotels that it's tens of millions of dollars involved here. But even if you hear that tens of millions of dollars to a lot of NBA players. Look, he's been in the league since twenty fifteen, so in the past ten years he has made one hundred and sixty million dollars in total income playing in the NBA since twenty fifteen, one hundred and sixty million. And you got some dudes counting cash tens of thousand dollars in your living room. Really, so that doesn't sound right, and his attorney says, there's a reason it doesn't sound right. Stay here, we are going to give you the pretty fiery statement from the attorney for Terry Rogier. We continue here now, folks, on this Thursday, on after what was really an interesting and really unexpected details we got from a press conference and which authorities announced to historic as they call it, indictments involving illegal gambling, why or fraud having to do with former and current NBA players and one NBA current head coach of the Portland Trail Blazers Chauncey Billups. Now Terry Rogier, one of the players place with the Miami Heat who's implicated in one of these cases. His attorney came out and I think this is this is how you defend your client in a statement. He hit on some points there. I like, really what? So I had already question.

00:19:10
Speaker 2: I had the same reaction because you hear Cash Bettel and certainly the heads of several other federal and state agencies speak and you think, my god, this is insane, and it isn't it is insane. But then when you hear Rogier's lawyer statement, already, yes, it does start to poke some holes, at least in the case against him initially. So here is what he had to say. We have represented Terry Rogier for over a year. A long time ago, we reached out to these prosecutors to tell them we should have an open line of communication. They characterize Terry as a subject, not a target. But at six am this morning they called to tell me FBI agents were trying to arrest him in a hotel. It is unfortunate that instead of allowing him to self surrender, they opted for a photo op. They wanted the misplaced glory of embarrassing a professional athlete with a purp walk. That tells you a lot about the motivations in this case. They appear to be taking the word of spectacularly incredible sources, like incredible, like not credible sources, rather than relying on actual evidence of wrongdoing. Terry was cleared by the NBA, and these prosecutors revived.

00:20:26
Speaker 1: That non case.

00:20:28
Speaker 2: Terry is not a gambler, but he is not afraid of a fight, and he looks forward to winning this fight.

00:20:35
Speaker 1: That's well done. That's how you defend your client right there in public, Like almost every line, I was like, oh, okay, that makes sense.

00:20:41
Speaker 2: Oh really, what well with the money he's made, I hope he can afford a really good lawyer. It sounds like he has and will be able to do so well.

00:20:48
Speaker 1: Nothing else. He's a good writer, whoever that is. But that is it kind of makes sense if you want to argue, maybe he didn't know. Is he a subject of this? Was he some one a victim to a certain degree, somebody taken advantage of And they also say these mobsters, mafia, they use intimidation and violence and threats to get some people to pay up. How else were these threats in Vaya? Who knows, but that statement certainly made me stop and think and question and go, oh, that makes sense. I cannot make any sense if somebody with one hundred and sixty million dollars that they've made wants to pick up fifty grand.

00:21:23
Speaker 2: The only because yes, of course, you're immediately going to motivation, Like I understand if somebody is cash strapped, it's still not okay, but you can at least understand the motive where they're desperate to whatever pay a bill or feed their family, or maybe it's greed to a certain extent. But when you already have that much money, how much more greed do you need to be the only thing you can think of is the thrill of it, the excitement of it. But that also just seems idiotic.

00:21:50
Speaker 1: Yeah, the other ways that gets you kicks. But yeah, everybody here is presumed innocent until otherwise noted. But this was a hell of a story, hell of the details to hear. I was looking robes that did not see that the Portland Trailblazers, at least this recording, had put out a statement. I also don't see their schedule in front of me don't where they're supposed to be headed next, but I mean the NBA season is underway, They're going to be games on tonight, and whatever commentator is on this will be the first thing talked about.

00:22:24
Speaker 2: Today, most certainly. And we will of course keep our eye on those hearings that are scheduled to happen later today at some point, because if any new information comes out from that, we will obviously pass that along to you. But it's hard to imagine that much is going to be said other than a reading of the charges specifically, and perhaps any sort of bail that would be negotiated.

00:22:47
Speaker 1: I'm not sure.

00:22:47
Speaker 2: I have no idea. This is such an unusual situation. It's hard to even imagine what could possibly happen next, and what the opportunities will be for any of these defendants to post bail. It's hard to say.

00:23:04
Speaker 1: But they do play tomorrow night. They are scheduled the Portland Trailblazers to take on the Golden State Warriors tomorrow night in Portland. We shall see if that game takes play.

00:23:17
Speaker 2: Do you think this brings more eyes to NBA games at least for the next couple of nights? Do you think that there is now with this spectacle that's taken place, and obviously it's for all the wrong reasons, but I imagine more people will be watching, listening, wanting to hear what commentators have to say, wanting to see at least how players react, how coaches react. I mean, this is rocking the NBA community.

00:23:40
Speaker 1: I am curious to hear from all of those guys. I want to hear from Shack Right, who knows Chauncey really really well played against them in that finals, Right, I want to hear from those guys, to hear what they say and think about it. I think even the retired guys are about to just I mean, they're former players, but they are forever a part of the league to watch this happen right now. Maybe it's a couple of knuckleheads, but it's gonna hurt the league for a while. And what have they been doing for the past several years. They've been partnering with all these gambling sites. They're trying to bring gambling into the league. Every time you turn on the TV and you see a game on, it shows you what at the bottom the over under right.

00:24:22
Speaker 2: And I'm always asking you what it means because I have no idea.

00:24:26
Speaker 1: I'm like, what is that doubtful college games? They're giving you betting lines. All you see is betting and gambling. So are we surprised this happens? If you get the right, like, if you are in business to make money gambling, just go get into the ear of one NBA player, one NFL player that can change a game. Man, this is scary as hell. Oh man, Commission of Silver, Adam Silver, for God bless you. But you gotta mess on your hands now, folks, we just want to hop on. This just happened, and we knew this was going to be a big story. We'll keep an eye. We'll see if something happens in court that we need to hop back on for, but otherwise, at this point, it's all We got T. J. Holmes along with Amy Robot. We'll talk to y'all soon.