FBI Arrests NBA Stars Involving High-Tech Poker Cheating Scandal
Poker continues to grow all over the world, but one aspect remains the same especially when it comes to the United States of America, whenever the card game hits the mainstream media spotlight, there is usually a scandal involved with one currently unfolding on a scale that has reached new heights.
After multi-year investigations by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), thirty individuals were arrested across nearly a dozen states as part of illegal gambling and criminal activities on Thursday, October 23, 2025. Two separate cases were made public, one of which concerned corruption and match-fixing related to sports betting while the other was connected to high-tech cheating allegations in high stakes private poker games.
Poker Cheating Scandal Involving NBA Stars
Right in the middle of the storm is the National Basketball Association (NBA) with three high profile figures involved: coach of the Portland Trail Blazers Chauncey Billups, former player Damon Jones, and active point guard Terry Rozier of the Miami Heat. Four New York based mafia families were also connected to the scandal, alleged to have backed rigged private poker games in which victims were scammed out of up to USD 7 Million.
According to the evidence presented by the prosecutors, modern technology such as chip tray analyzers, manipulated shuffling machines, special glasses to recognize marked cards and x-ray tables to read cards face down were used in the elaborate scheme to transmit the information to participants in real time. Billups and Jones were used as bait to attract unassuming victims to compete against well known NBA stars.
The threat posed by modern technology also hit the live poker circuit in recent years when leading operator PokerStars changed the dealing technique to sliding instead of high pitching. Suspects were caught on European soil using mini cameras on the felt to record pitched cards and transmit the information to collaborators in real time. Likewise, the World Series of Poker has also limited the use of electronic devices in the tournament area since the summer of 2025.
It wouldn’t be the first time that American sports stars are involved in private games that went south with Gilbert Arenas and Paul Pierce the most recent examples in the mainstream media. And that may only be the tip of the iceberg with more celebrities possibly implicated.
