High-Stakes Poker Cheating Scandal: NBA Stars Entangled

Chauncey Billups, Portland Trail Blazers head coach, and others are implicated in a scandal involving rigged high-stakes poker games. Federal indictments reveal the use of sophisticated cheating technologies to swindle high-rollers, with organized crime figures orchestrating the scams. NBA celebrities were allegedly leveraged to lure unsuspecting players.

Portland Trail Blazers head coach Chauncey Billups is at the center of a scandal involving rigged high-stakes poker games, according to newly unsealed federal indictments. Billups, a former NBA Hall of Famer, along with others, is charged with defrauding poker players out of millions.

Federal prosecutors allege that wealthy gamblers were lured with the promise of playing with NBA celebrities, only to be swindled through sophisticated technologies that manipulated card games. These games, advertised as the 'Washington Place Game' and 'Lexington Avenue Game,' became hotspots for cheating within Manhattan's underground poker scene.

Further, the scam involved notorious crime families such as the Bonanno, Gambino, Lucchese, and Genovese, who controlled the games. They used extortion and robbery to collect debts, while laundering illicit gains through cryptocurrency. Former athletes, labeled as 'Face Cards,' were implicated as part of the allure to attract victims.

(With inputs from agencies.)