Chauncey Billups (Screenshot from Trail Blazers' video)
Former Detroit Pistons star Chauncey Billups was described in a federal indictment as a "Face Card," meaning he was allegedly used as a big name player in rigged poker games to make them appear more legitimate to unsuspecting wealthy gamblers, who had no idea the games were rigged.
The 22-page indictment unsealed Thursday, which names Billups and 30 other defendants, alleges that the nationwide conspiracy included regular poker games in New York tied to multiple mob families, including the Gambinos, once headed by the late John Gotti Jr. There were also games in Las Vegas and Miami.
Billups, 49, an NBA Hall of Famer, faces one count of wire fraud conspiracy and four counts of money laundering conspiracy. He has been placed on leave as head coach of the Portland Trail Blazers, a job held since 2021.
From 2019 to the present, the feds estimate the rigged games cheated players out of more than $7.1 million.
The indictment, which was unsealed the day after the opening season games on Wednesday, was one of two gambling-indictments. The second, which did not name Billups, listed six defendants who conspired to get inside information from the NBA to game the online sports betting industry.
The federal indictment out of Brooklyn that named Billups, alleged:
"On numerous occasions, certain defendants and their co-conspirators invited the victims, who were often wealthy, to rigged games. To attract the victims, in some instances, well-known former professional athletes participated in the rigged poker scheme and were referred to as 'Face Cards.'"
"The Face Cards were members of the Cheating Teams and received a portion of the criminal proceeds in exchange for their participation in the scheme," the indictment read.
"The defendants Chauncey Billups and Damon Jones (Cleveland Cavaliers), both of whom are former professional basketball players, were Face Cards and members of the Cheating Teams."
The indictment alleges that the Cheating Teams used card shuffling machines that were supposed to ensure fairness. However, the machines were secretly altered to use concealed technology to read the cards in the deck, predict which player at the table had the best poker hand, and relay that information via interstate wires to an off-site operator.
The operator then communicated the information by cell phone to a member of the Cheating Team seated at the rigged poker tables, the indictment said.
The Cheating Teams used the information to defraud the unsuspecting players, according to the indictment.
At times, the indictment alleged, the participants also used other cheating technologies such as electronic poker chip trays that secretly read cards on the poker table; card analyzers that utilized technology loaded onto decoy cellular telephones that could surreptitiously detect which cards were on the table; and playing cards that had markers visible only to individuals wearing specially designed contact lenses or sunglasses.
Regarding the New York games, the indictment alleged that members and associates of the Bonanno, Gambino, and Genovese crime families used threats and intimidation to ensure payment of debts from the losers.
The mob also protected the games from competition and other potential threats in exchange for a portion of the proceeds.
In April 2019, the indictment alleges that Billups and several others named in the indictment organized and participated in rigged games in Las Vegas and defrauded victims of at least $50,000. The indictment alleges they used a rigged shuffling machine provided by Robert Stroud, aka "Black Rob."
Though not named in the second indictment involving inside NBA information, CBS Sports reports that indictment may reference Billups simply as "Co-Conspirator 8."
CBS Sports writes:
Billups, however, might also be tied to sharing insider information with bettors as Blazers coach. Though he was not named in the Rozier indictment, a person referred to as "Co-Conspirator 8" matches Billups' description: "a resident of Oregon" and "an NBA player from approximately 1997 through 2014, and an NBA coach since at least 2021."
The indictment alleges that Co-Conspirator 8 supplied information about the Blazers resting key players ahead of a March 24, 2023, contest against the Bulls before it was public. Damian Lillard, Jusuf Nurkic, Jerami Grant and Anfernee Simons all sat out in a game the Blazers lost by 28 points.
If he pleads guilty or is convicted, it will likely spell the end of his affiliation with the NBA.
Billups played for the Pistons from 2002 to 2008 and again in 2013–14 before retiring from the league. He earned the nickname “Mr. Big Shot” for consistently making clutch shots and was a key player on the Pistons’ 2004 championship team under coach Larry Brown.