Posted on 10/23/2025 3:53:55 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
The FBI has arrested Chauncey Billups, NBA champion, Hall of Famer, and coach of the Portland Trail Blazers for his association in a rigged poker game operated by some of New York City’s most notorious crime family. “Why would Chauncey do it?” the world of sports is asking. He’s already worth tens of millions of dollars. That’s a question for Billups, his attorneys, his God, and, presumably, Blazers ownership to answer. But as someone who regularly plays a lot of low and micro-stakes poker, I have a pretty good idea.
The games I play in are monitored by security cameras, with armed guards at the exits in case people get out of line. When I play in World Series of Poker or World Poker Tour events, there are a strict set of rules by which the vast majority of players abide. There’s some rule-bending, but it usually involves peeking at other people’s cards, using computer solvers to help make quick decisions at the table, or a variety of “angle shooting” tricks upon which the poker world tends to frown.
In the rare instances when actual cheating does occur, with the occasional earbud installed to allow a player who know what’s happening on the internet livestream in which they’re participating, the poker world roots it out pretty quickly, and that player quickly finds themselves uninvited, in legal trouble and having to actually work for a living instead of playing cards.
Chauncey Billups, on the other hand, fell prey to the sinister temptations of the “private game,” which is where all poker pros know the real money lies. The Bonanno, Genovese, Lucchese and Gambino crime families paid Billups, as well as two Miami Heat players, Terry Rozier and Damon Jones, to participate in New York games that involved rigged card shufflers and special glasses and contact lenses. Rozier also apparently faked an injury to throw games, or at least manipulate NBA stats, winning thousands of dollars in sports betting as a result.
So the NBA is at least partially rigged, big surprise, but let’s keep our eyes on the cards. As the New York Post put it, the mob used the NBA stars to attract “fish” to the games. However, these weren’t mere fish. I play against fish on the average Thursday night as they pull crumpled $20 bills out of their wallets in a desperate attempt to beat a game they can only occasionally win. These were bonafide whales.
It might seem odd for people to risk playing a private game, run by the mob, when the bright and mostly regulated lights of Atlantic City casino poker are just 80 miles away. But poker is a tempting devil. The idea that you can turn $100 into $2,000 isn’t just an abstraction. It’s a reality, and it happens in card rooms around the world every day. Blowing thousands of dollars at a time also happens regularly. So whales don’t even necessarily know that they’re whales. They’re just swimming in the ocean.
And the temptation of playing with actual professional basketball players, who we’ve seen on TV and probably gambled on before, is pretty high. In the skeezy world that makes up my days and nights, guys get pretty excited if they play against someone who was once a AAA pitching coach for the Red Sox, or a backup point guard for Michigan State for a couple of seasons. Imagine playing against Mr. Big Shot himself from the Pistons. You’d never suspect that he’s actually a bald, black Le Schiffre.
“The fraud is mind-boggling,” said FBI director Kash Patel at a press conference yesterday. Yet when I heard about it this morning, it didn’t quite boggle my mind. If you play poker, you just assume that kind of stuff is going on at private games, at all stakes, all the time. I, for one, would be very wary of playing in a game run by someone named “Flappy” who’s backed by the Gambino crime family.
There’s no real mystery that the mob would run a shady card game. That’s nothing new. Or that rich marks would fall for their schemes. The real question revolves around Billups, who risked his shining reputation and his substantial fortune to help criminals cheat at cards. We can only assume that the mob made him an offer he couldn’t refuse.
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“We already know what kind of woman you are. We are just haggling over price.”
Why would Chauncey do it?”
What is cognac and strippers ?
Governor of Illinois................
The loony left is already accusing the DOJ of doing this because of...you-know-who derangement. It is pure joy to see the RATz coming out of the dumbass closet in full nudity.
RE: What is cognac and strippers ?
Chauncey is rich enough to afford them if he wants, he doesn’t need La Cosa Nostra. It’s got to be something else.
No one remembers the NBA scandal with the Atlanta Strip club, and Patrick Ewing had to testify on his racketeering?
And maybe the players got in hock to the mob (even with all their money it still happens) and had to go along with the scam to pay them off.
He obviously lost a substantial part of that fortune gambling. Remember when "Book of Virtues" scribe Bill Bennett lost some $8 million gambling at casinos. It is a great evil.
One of my conspiracy theories has long been that some major sporting events are rigged.
Greed and gambling have been the downfall of many.
Well in the spirit of the black sox scandal, who do you like in the World Series? :)
And for years fans have been complaining about bad officiating and players not giving it all in both the NBA and NFL. Well I guess we have the answer now. The investigation will prove undoubtedly the NBA and the NFL have been throwing games for years.
I haven’t had any interest in Baseball since the Indians went away. Haven’t followed basketball since Spud Webb retired. Dropped pro football when the Browns changed their name and left Cleveland. And gave up on NASCAR when they went woke.
This is way more important than the Epstein files.../s
Let’s look into the refs in the NFL as well.
As far as the Wise Guys threats...a guy like Billups has any number of Black gang bangers at his beck and call whose proficiency with violence makes the Wise Guys of today look like school crossing guards.
I thought I read somewhere this morning that Spartacus Booker may be involved too.
I cannot confirm it however.
So how did he get caught up with them at all? Feeding info for betting on the NBA?
IF I remember correctly, Bill Bennet did not actually lose $8million. The information in leaked news reports was from his Card Play. Those that frequent casinos know that plahying with your card shows the amount inputed and outputed (if those are words) The information supposedly showed that he played $10million dollars. Well that means he is puts in saY $100 and wins $2, $40, etc and continues spinning (he was playing $5 slots IIRC) and wins and losses can be against that original $100- So $100 in can translate to say $15K worth of play for example. That adds up to $10million over a period of time.
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