Oct 25, 2025 Current Resources

High-stakes poker scam used rigged card shufflers, X-ray tables, and special glasses

The feds on Thursday charged alleged mafia associates and current and former National Basketball Association players and coaches with running rigged poker games and illegal sports betting.

Two federal indictments were unsealed on Thursday, one focused on a high-tech poker cheating scam, the other focused on a sports betting conspiracy.

Starting around 2019, a group of alleged mafia associates began operating a high-stakes poker con at several locations around Manhattan, according to an indictment filed by the US Attorney for the Eastern District of New York. The card cheating scheme relied on X-ray tables, rigged card shufflers, and glasses capable of reading hidden card markings.

Authorities say they arrested 31 individuals across 11 states, including members and associates of the Bonanno, Gambino, and Genovese organized crime families of La Cosa Nostra.

Chauncey Billups, the head coach of the Portland Trail Blazers, and former Cleveland Cavaliers player and assistant coach Damon Jones were also arrested.

Billups' attorney Chris Heywood told ESPN in a statement that his client did not do what the government claims and that Billups intends to fight the charges.

For years, these individuals allegedly hosted illegal poker games where they used sophisticated technology and enlisted current and former NBA players to cheat people out of millions of dollars

"For years, these individuals allegedly hosted illegal poker games where they used sophisticated technology and enlisted current and former NBA players to cheat people out of millions of dollars," said NYPD Commissioner Jessica S. Tisch in a statement.

"This complex scheme was so far reaching that it included members from four of the organized crime families, and when people refused to pay because they were cheated, these defendants did what organized crime has always done: they used threats, intimidation, and violence."

As described in the indictment, the victimized card players believed they were participating in fair but illegal poker games against other players. However, the games were rigged, resulting in a loss of at least $7 million since the scheme's inception. The NBA celebrities supposedly served as "Face Cards" to attract players.

"The defendants and their co-conspirators, who constituted the remaining participants purportedly playing in the poker games, worked together on cheating teams … that used advanced wireless technologies to read the cards dealt in each poker hand and relay that information to the defendants and co-conspirators participating in the illegal poker games," the indictment claims.

The cheating scheme allegedly employed compromised shuffling machines that could read the cards in the deck and transmit this information to an off-site relayer who messaged the details back to a player at the table, referred to as the "Quarterback" or "Driver." This individual then used prearranged signals to communicate with co-conspirators at the table, all to win poker games against unsuspecting victims.

The defendants also allegedly employed "a chip tray analyzer (essentially, a poker chip tray that also secretly read all cards using hidden cameras), an X-ray table that could read cards face down on the table, and special contact lenses or eyeglasses that could read pre-marked cards."

Avi Rubin, professor emeritus of computer science at Johns Hopkins, former technical director of the Johns Hopkins University Information Security Institute (ISI), founder of security firm Harbor Labs, and a poker educator, told The Register in a phone interview, "it's overwhelming and then it's actually not that entirely surprising because you know people historically have always cheated when there was an opportunity and money's involved."

Rubin said the incident validates his preference to only play poker with friends and people that he trusts when the stakes are high.

"I would never go, you know, to a hotel or to like a private game and play very high stakes where I didn't know the organizers really well and trust them," he said.

Online poker games have long presented a risk of cheating and player collusion, but this incident reaffirms that in-person games, where collusion has always been a possibility, can also be subverted through technology.

I think the sophistication in the cheating technologies is far greater than the sophistication in detection

"I think the sophistication in the cheating technologies is far greater than the sophistication in detection, and it's not very common for people to even have expensive detection technology," said Rubin. "You're not, as a player, equipped to compete in a way with the people that have the resources to cheat like that."

Major Las Vegas casinos like the MGM Grand or Caesars Palace, Rubin said, put a lot of money and effort into protecting games at their facilities and have an interest in preventing cheating scandals from tarnishing their brands. "You're probably safe playing in big, brand name casinos," he said. "But at the end of the day, you know, it's poker and if somebody wants to try hard enough and spends money to do it, they may find a way to cheat.

"So I think you stick to games where you can afford to lose or where you know the people. And that's just the kind of common sense for poker altogether."

The second of the two indictments alleged that six defendants, including Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier and former NBA assistant coach and player Damon Jones (named in the first indictment), colluded to share inside information and to alter in-game behavior to influence the outcome of bets on NBA games.

The NBA in a statement said it's reviewing the allegations and will cooperate with the investigation. Rozier and Billups have been placed on leave from their teams.

Rozier's attorney Jim Trusty told USA Today that the NBA already looked into allegations about his client and that Rozier was cleared. The prosecution, he said, had revived a non-case. ®