Dozens of people, including three former Boston Celtics, were arrested and charged in two sweeping federal indictments alleging insider sports betting on a massive scale and enticing victims to play in rigged underground poker games run by the Mafia that included James Bond-style technology.

Portland Trailblazers Head Coach Chauncey Billups and Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier, both former Celtics, were among those arrested Thursday morning. The former Celtics are defendants in separate indictments. Also arrested was Damon “Dee” Jones, whose career included 13 games as a Celtic in 1999.

The National Basketball Association suspended both players following an announcement in New York City by FBI Director Kash Patel and U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York Joseph Nocella, Jr.

“We are in the process of reviewing the federal indictments announced today,” the NBA wrote in a statement. “Terry Rozier and Chauncey Billups are being placed on immediate leave from their teams, and we will continue to cooperate with the relevant authorities. We take these allegations with the utmost seriousness, and the integrity of our game remains our top priority.”

The scandal rocked the NBA the same year as the largest team sale in league history, when the Celtics went for $6.1 billion in a sale finalized in the summer, besting the previous record sale of $4 billion for the Phoenix Suns. It also comes only two days after the league started broadcasting on NBC in a $27 billion digital rights deal in which the network pays $2.5 billion per year to broadcast and stream NBA games. The Wall Street Journal reported that the deal was expected to lose between $500 million and $1.4 billion annually for the network, which was betting on its long-term payout.

Betting scandal

Federal authorities allege that basketball players, coaches, and their associates traded and sold insider information like when top players would sit out due to medical situations that hadn’t yet been publicly disclosed.

In one instance, the feds allege, Rozier in 2023 while a Charlotte Hornets player told associates that he would leave the game early due to a supposed injury, thus prompting his associates to bet he would underperform in the game, which led to all of them reaping massive payouts from their insider information betting.

“This is a messy business and when you allow people to do microbetting and prop betting on their phones every two seconds during games it opens up a world of problems,” Andrew Zimbalist, a professor emeritus in the economics department of Smith College and a nationally recognized expert on the intersection of sports and economics, told the Herald Thursday.

Charged in this case are Eric Earnest, who is known as “Spook,” according to the indictment, 35, of Missouri; Marves Fairley, known as “Vez” or “Vezino,” 33, of Mississippi; Shane Hennen, known as “Sugar,” 31, of Nevada; Damon “Dee” Jones; Deniro Laster, who goes by “Niro,” “Payso,” and “Peso”; and Rozier, who the feds say is also known as “Scary Terry” and “Chum,” 31, of Florida.

La Costra Net-stra

The illegal poker indictment is the larger of the two cases, listing 31 defendants, including alleged members and associates of three New York City-area mafia families. Most of the defendants were arrested across 11 states Thursday morning.

The feds allege in the seven-count indictment that as early as 2019, conspirators including Billups participated in rigged underground poker games in New York City. Professional athletes were “face cards” to get victims enticed into playing a game that prosecutors say cost victims some $7 million.

“Well-known former NBA players and former professional athletes, acted as ‘Face Cards’ to lure unsuspecting victims to high-stakes poker games, where they were then at the mercy of concealed technology, including rigged shuffling machines and specially designed contacts lenses and sunglasses to read the backs of playing cards, which ensured that the victims would lose big,” U.S. Attorney Nocella said. “Today’s indictment and arrests sounds the final buzzer for these cheaters.”

Federal authorities say that beginning in 2019, these high-tech rigged games started popping up among the straight illegal poker tables run by the New York crime families of Bonanno, Gambino and Genovese, who profited from all proceeds whether the particular game was rigged or not. And just like in the traditional games, victims were assaulted, extorted, and even robbed at gunpoint when they fell into debt, according to the indictment.

Can it be fixed?

The twin indictments exposed a troubling aspect to the proliferation of sports gambling in the modern era.

Zimbalist told the Herald it’s too early to tell if the scandal will only tarnish the reputations of those involved or broaden to directly impact the NBA’s credibility. But if left unchecked, that could change for all the sports leagues.

“If fans start getting the idea that games are going to be fixed one way or the other, that’s going to hurt the leagues,” he said.

He said he expects NBA Commissioner Adam Silver may level some punishments for those involved, but can’t predict the leagues making immediate structural changes to confront these issues.

He said that Europe started experimenting with legalized sports gambling earlier than the USA and that exposed similar issues, which were taken up by lawmakers instead of the leagues. Zimbalist said state legislatures or Congress may be the most likely to make rules that check such excesses.

“I think it’s very unlikely that the sports leagues on their own accord are going to walk away from the money that sports gambling is providing for them,” Zimbalist said.