The Day the NBA’s Trust Was Shattered: Inside the Four-Year FBI Probe That Connected Current Stars to Organized Crime

October 23, 2025, began like any other opening week morning in the National Basketball Association. Players were reviewing film, coaches were prepping for the day, and the league was basking in the excitement of a new season. But as the clock ticked toward 6 a.m. Eastern Time, a massive, coordinated federal operation exploded across 11 states, ripping the veil off a scandal so vast and insidious it reads like a rejected Martin Scorsese script.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation, in a synchronized sweep involving over 50 tactical teams, executed 34 arrests and more than 50 search warrants, targeting not just fringe figures but a current $100 million player, a beloved NBA Hall of Fame coach, and the ruthless muscle of four notorious New York Mafia families. The charges are racketeering, fraud, and illegal gambling, collectively resulting in the alleged theft of tens of millions of dollars. The message was unmistakable: the modern, multi-billion dollar ecosystem of professional basketball and legalized gambling has been fundamentally corrupted, and the FBI is watching.

The Quiet Genesis of a Four-Year Conspiracy

The case, which federal prosecutors dubbed “Operation Nothing But Bet” and “Operation Royal Flush,” was years in the making. It didn’t start with headlines; it began quietly in the dimly lit backrooms of New York City in 2021, where whispers of fixed, high-stakes poker games first caught law enforcement’s attention. This original probe was cross-referenced with suspicious betting patterns flagged during the 2024 Jontay Porter wire fraud case, and what investigators quickly realized was that they were not dealing with isolated incidents, but two sophisticated and interconnected criminal enterprises.

Federal agents did something remarkable: they embedded confidential informants deep inside the high-stakes poker and betting rings. One such informant, a reformed associate of the Bananno crime family, who had lost a staggering $200,000 in the rigged games, decided to flip in 2023. Over several months, this single cooperating witness provided more than 3,000 hours of recorded conversations, delivering the digital evidence that would ultimately expose the entire scheme—from the insider betting to the mafia’s backing of the fraudulent poker tables.

The evidence collected over four years is staggering: digital trails detailing specific game manipulations, court-authorized wiretaps, financial subpoenas, and bank records revealing money laundering through offshore accounts and cryptocurrency wallets. The trail of dirty money and compromised integrity led directly to three names that had previously represented the best of the league: Terry Rosier, the dynamic guard for the Miami Heat; Chauncey Billups, the celebrated five-time All-Star and current Head Coach of the Portland Trailblazers; and Damon Jones, a former player and coach who served as the critical “lynchpin” between both criminal operations.

The Two Fronts of Betrayal: Fake Injuries and Rigged Shufflers

The first scheme, Operation Nothing But Bet, focused on the exploitation of the exploding player prop betting market. This is where the fraud became most brazen and exposed a fundamental vulnerability in the new era of legalized sports betting.

Prosecutors allege the conspirators exploited the crucial time gap between when an NBA team makes an internal decision about a player’s health or availability, and when that information becomes public knowledge. For gamblers, this window of information asymmetry is essentially a guaranteed jackpot.

In the most egregious example detailed in the indictment, on March 23, 2023, Terry Rosier, then with the Charlotte Hornets, was scheduled to play the New Orleans Pelicans. Federal prosecutors claim Rosier texted his childhood friend, Dairo Ler, informing him that he planned to exit the game early by feigning a foot injury. Armed with this exclusive, pre-game knowledge, Ler and other co-conspirators allegedly placed over $200,000 in prop bets, specifically wagering the under on Rosier’s point totals and minutes played. Rosier played just nine minutes, scored five points, and left the game citing an injury that required no subsequent treatment—a performance that netted the conspirators a massive, fraudulent payout.

Meanwhile, Damon Jones, the former Cavaliers player and coach, allegedly leveraged his deep relationships and proximity to the Los Angeles Lakers coaching staff to sell insider information about the health and strategic use of superstars like LeBron James and Anthony Davis. The indictment includes a specific example from February 9, 2023, where Jones allegedly texted co-conspirators to bet against the Lakers hours before the official injury report confirmed LeBron James would sit out. This betrayal, which generated over $1 million in fraudulent wagers, was not just about money; it was about weaponizing the most private and sensitive information of the world’s biggest stars.

Operation Royal Flush: Mafia, Hall of Famers, and X-Ray Tables

If the betting scheme was simple fraud, the second operation, “Royal Flush,” was a full-blown organized crime spectacle.

This scheme involved orchestrating rigged underground poker games in glamorous locations—from South Beach villas to Hamptons estates—backed by four of New York’s notorious organized crime families: the Banano, Gambino, Genevese, and Lucizi clans. This partnership between basketball royalty and La Cosa Nostra sent the most chilling message of the entire scandal. The mafia’s role was essential: providing the organizational structure to attract high-value victims and, most critically, the muscle to collect debts that regularly exceeded $50,000 per night.

The technology used in these games was pulled straight from a spy film. Investigators seized:

X-Ray Card Scanners: Devices that could literally see through decks of cards while they were face down on the felt.
Modified Shuffling Machines: Off-the-shelf Deckmate 2 shufflers secretly altered with wireless chips to read, predict, and relay information about the best hand to an off-site operator.
UV Marked Decks and Special Lenses: Enabling cheaters at the table to read the “marked” cards with the naked eye.

Chauncey Billups was allegedly drawn into this web, with his involvement tied to illegal poker operations backed by the mafia. The arrest of a revered Hall of Famer, just hours after coaching his team’s season opener, underscored the terrifying reach of this enterprise.

The financial scope of the poker ring alone defrauded victims of over $7.15 million, according to prosecutors, with the actual total believed to be “tens of millions of dollars.” When victims couldn’t pay, the mafia enforcers stepped in, with federal documents detailing incidents of violent collections, assaults, and threats against defaulting debtors. This was not a victimless crime; it was an act of brutal, high-tech extortion.

The NBA’s Blind Spot and the Shattered Trust

Perhaps the most damaging revelation for the league’s integrity was the “massive disconnect” between the NBA’s security team and federal law enforcement. The NBA actually investigated Terry Rosier in 2023 after that suspicious game against the Pelicans and ultimately cleared him of any wrongdoing.

The league’s internal probe, limited to interviews and voluntary phone log reviews, simply did not have the power of court-authorized wiretaps and financial subpoenas that the FBI wielded. While the NBA was focused on minor violations, the FBI was patiently building a racketeering case involving organized crime, making the league look either incompetent or deliberately blind to the rot within its walls.

Commissioner Adam Silver moved swiftly, placing Rosier and Billups on indefinite administrative leave. But the fallout was immediate and severe, shattering the trust that held the league’s culture together. The stock of major betting partners, including DraftKings and FanDuel, plummeted by billions. Analyst warnings of a “regulatory chill” swept through Wall Street, raising questions about the long-term viability of the league’s gambling partnerships—the very source of billions in new revenue.

The emotional reaction from NBA legends was one of profound shame. Shaquille O’Neal spoke of disappointment, lamenting that these players “put themselves and put their family and put the NBA in this position.” Charles Barkley was even more direct, dismissing any talk of gambling addiction with the simple assessment: “These dudes are stupid. Under no circumstances can you fix basketball games.”

As the basketball world now navigates this new reality, every conversation in the locker room, every minute restriction, and every unexpected benching carries the shadow of suspicion. The FBI’s dramatic, synchronized raid delivered a message to every player, coach, and executive in the league: we’re watching, we’re listening, and in the new age of legalized betting, nobody is safe. The innocence of the game, built on the faith that outcomes are determined by fair competition, is gone. The long, complex journey through the courts, scheduled for spring 2026, will not only determine the fate of the defendants but will ultimately force a reckoning over the price the professional sports world is willing to pay for the billions earned from the betting industry.