Portland Trail Blazers coach Chauncey Billups and Miami Heat player Terry Rozier arrested

A National Basketball Association player and coach are among dozens of people charged in two investigations centred on illegal sports betting and mafia-linked poker games, the FBI has announced.

Miami Heat player Terry Rozier was among six people arrested over alleged betting irregularities, including other players who may have faked injuries.

Portland Trail Blazers coach Chauncey Billups is one of 31 people charged in a separate illegal poker game case involving former players and organised crime figures.

Rozier’s lawyer denied the allegations to CBS News, the BBC’s US news partner, saying: “Terry is not a gambler, but he is not afraid of a fight, and he looks forward to winning this fight.”

In a statement, the NBA said that Rozier and Billups are being placed on immediate leave, as the association is reviewing the federal indictments.

“We take these allegations with the utmost seriousness, and the integrity of our game remains our top priority,” the statement read.

US Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, Joseph Nocella Jr, said all defendants are innocent until proven guilty, but warned: “Your winning streak has ended. Your luck has run out.”

FBI Director Kash Patel called the arrests “extraordinary” and said there was a “coordinated takedown across 11 states”.

Prosecutors said the first case involved players and associates who allegedly used insider information to manipulate bets on major platforms.

Nocella called it “one of the most brazen sports corruption schemes since online sports betting became widely legalised”.

Seven NBA games between February 2023 and March 2024 have been identified as part of the case. Rozier is said to have been involved in one between the Charlotte Hornets and New Orleans Pelicans, when he was playing for the Hornets.

New York City Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said that on 23 March 2023, Rozier allegedly let others close to him know that he planned to leave a game early with a supposed injury.

Using that information, conspirators allegedly placed bets that paid out tens of thousands of dollars in profits, she said.

During the game, Rozier played roughly nine minutes and scored just five points because of a sore right foot, according to the official NBA match report.

Before that game, he averaged 35 minutes of playing time and about 21 points per game.

“As the NBA season tips off, his career is already benched, not for injury but for integrity,” Tisch said.

Rozier’s lawyer James Trusty said in a statement that prosecutors “appear to be taking the word of spectacularly in-credible sources rather than relying on actual evidence of wrongdoing. Terry was cleared by the NBA and these prosecutors revived that non-case.”

Trusty said he had been representing Rozier for more than a year and said prosecutors characterised Rozier as a subject, not a target, until they informed him FBI agents were arresting the player on Thursday morning.

Former NBA player Damon Jones was also arrested.

Jones is said to have been involved in two of the identified games – when the Los Angeles Lakers met the Milwaukee Bucks in February 2023, and a January 2024 game between the Lakers and Oklahoma City Thunder.

The second case involves 31 defendants alleged to have participated in a scheme to rig illegal poker games and steal millions of dollars, backed by crime families.

The case involved 13 members and associates of the Bonanno, Genovese and Gambino crime families.

Nocella said the targeted victims were lured to play in games with former professional athletes, including Billups and Jones, in Las Vegas, Miami, Manhattan and the Hamptons.

Victims were “fleeced” out of tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars per game, he said.

He said defendants used “very sophisticated technology” like altered off-the-shelf shuffling machines that could read the cards. Some of the defendants used special contact lenses and eye glasses to read pre-marked cards, and an X-ray table that could read cards when they were face-down, he added.

Tisch said when people refused to pay, the organised crime families used threats and intimidation to get people to hand over the money.

The charges include robbery, extortion, wire fraud, bank fraud and illegal gambling.

The conspiracy cheated victims out of $7m (£5.2m), with one losing $1.8 million, officials said.

“This is only the tip of the iceberg,” Christopher Raia, the FBI assistant director of the New York field office, said, adding the FBI is working day and night to ensure members of mafia families “cannot continue to wreak havoc in our communities”.