NBA head coach Chauncey Billups brazenly made a quip about poker following the Portland Trail Blazers’ opening defeat on Wednesday night, just hours before his arrest in relation to a Mafia-led gambling ring.
The Trail Blazers coach, 49, was detained by federal agents in a series of raids in the early hours of Thursday morning.
The former NBA champion, who was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame last year, was arrested in a case related to an illegal poker operation linked with the Mafia.
In a now-ironic twist, the coach made a reference to the card game in his postgame press conference after Portland’s season-opening loss to the Minnesota Timberwolves.
‘That pressure thing is nothing to me, man. I do the best I can and let the chips fall where they may, you know that about me,’ Billups told reporters when questioned about the defeat.
Hours later, he was arrested for allegedly fixing where the chips fall.
NBA head coach Chauncey Billups brazenly made a light-hearted quip about poker Wednesday
The Trail Blazers head coach was on the sidelines for their defeat hours before his arrest
The poker operation is allegedly tied to the Gambino, Bonanno and Genovese crime families, and saw rigged games take place in Manhattan, the Hamptons and Las Vegas.
Billups was used by members of La Cosa Nostra crime families as one of the ‘face cards’ – professional athletes – to lure victims to the table. The victims were allegedly cheated out of $7million
In Thursday’s press conference, United States Attorney Joseph Nocella Jr. outlined the breathtaking methods used by the group to rig games.
It is alleged that New York’s notorious crime families would use X-ray tables to tilt games in their favor and wear special high-tech contact lenses to read pre-marked cards.
He said in a press conference on Thursday: ‘The defendants used a variety of very sophisticated cheating technologies, some of which were provided by other defendants in exchange for a share of the profits from the scheme.
‘They used off the shelf shuffling machines that had been secretly altered in order to read the cards in the deck, predict which player at the table had the best poker hand and relay that information to an off-site operator.
‘The off-side operator sent the information via cellphone back to a co-conspirator at the table, who was known as “the quarterback”, and they secretly signaled the information they had received to others at the table and together they used that information in order to win the games and cheat their victims.
‘Defendants used other cheating technologies, such as poker chip tray analyzers – which is a poker chip try that secretly reads cards using a hidden camera – special contact lenses or glasses that could read pre-marked cards and an X-ray table that could read cards faced down on the table.’
Billups, pictured with his wife Piper Riley, is in his fifth year of coaching Portland
FBI Director Kash Patel announced the indictments in a press conference on Thursday
Meanwhile, Miami Heat star Terry Rozier and former Cavaliers player and assistant coach Damon Jones have been charged in a separate but related case, which accuses them of turning professional basketball into a criminal sports betting operation.
It is alleged that the teams whose games were affected by the sports gambling scheme are the Los Angeles Lakers, Charlotte Hornets, Toronto Raptors, and Portland Trail Blazers.
According to the indictment, released on Thursday morning, Rozier and other defendants ‘had access to private information known by NBA players or NBA coaches’ that was likely to affect the outcome of games or players’ performances.
It is alleged they provided that information to other co-conspirators in exchange for either a flat fee or a share of the betting profits.
