The head coach of the Portland Trail Blazers and a player for the Miami Heat were arrested Thursday along with more than 30 other people in two cases alleging sprawling criminal schemes to rake in millions by rigging sports bets and poker games involving Mafia families, authorities said.
Portland coach Chauncey Billups was charged with participating in a conspiracy to fix high-stakes card games in Las Vegas, Miami, Manhattan and the Hamptons that were backed by La Cosa Nostra organized crime families. Heat guard Terry Rozier is accused in a separate scheme to concoct fraudulent bets by exploiting insider information about NBA athletes.
The indictments unsealed in New York create a massive cloud for the NBA — which opened its season this week — and show how certain types of wagers are vulnerable to massive fraud in the growing, multi-billion-dollar legal sports-betting industry. Joseph Nocella, the top federal prosecutor for the Eastern District of New York, called it “one of the most brazen sports corruption schemes since online sports betting became widely legalized in the United States.”
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