Blazers coach Chauncey Billups arrested by FBI for illegal gambling

[Biff]

Dude already had a enough money to comfortably live on. He **** around and found out. What a terrible decision.

[Wolveswin]

Apparently it's not just that they were hosting illegal raked games (common thing where it's essentially an unlicensed/untaxed casino)

Billups was involved in FULLY RIGGED poker games - rigged decks, setups to straight up cheat players out of money.

Matt Berkey (poker pro) was talking about it a few years ago on his podcast (27:15 mark): https://www.youtube.com/live/G-TKR5ca5jI?feature=share&t=1635

Wow, initially I thought all of this was BS because who cares about playing a poker game, I do it all the time but damn if what this guy is saying is true, this is definitely racketeering and I have to say Billups should be punished for it.

He is literally the biggest POS of the story in my book because he is actively trying to ensnare new players into the scheme and ruin players lives by getting them to join rigged games they can't win.

‘But but but that can’t be true. He was only arrested because FBI is trump puppet and trump hates Portland.’ -signed: who cares if truth doesn’t fit my narrative because I am going to spew wrongful lies as form of hate anyway.

[lambchop]

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Lookie there

Semi OT but props to everyone involved in Paris basketball. It created two (interim) NBA head coaches and multiple guys got paid. All cause of a weird, guard dominant offense they ran.

[pepe1991]

During whole Kawhi Leonard- Aspiration- Gates, i kept repeating that USA is yet to find in ugliest way possible all the problems of gambling firms being sponsors of NBA teams & league in general. As USA never had such a open sports betting promotion.

Basically, over past 2 years, all the former McDonalds, Subway , Burger King NBA games commercials have been replaced with open promotion to gamble.
You had in Magic preseason game betting addict yelling at Banchero to score 2 more points to go over margin.

And ofc, players & coaches are no fools and they also see clear path for easy money.

Player A can at any point tell his friend, who wil tell his friend to place some $40K on under points, that player has to do literally nothing but to commit 3 quick fouls and his under is secured. Later they will all split nice $13K bonus. Do it several times and it's tax free, juicy, cash.


As former gambling addict, it's one of the worst things that any person can go through. And type of addiction that ruins families, destroys relationships & forces people into suicides faster & more effective than drugs or alcohol ever could. Worst thing is that you can be functional & appear normal in regular life, while in same time your life is falling apart and nobody has any clue. Until it's too late.

[tcheco]

Splitter the first Brazilian HC ever, good for him

[CIN-C-STAR]

Apparently it's not just that they were hosting illegal raked games (common thing where it's essentially an unlicensed/untaxed casino)

Billups was involved in FULLY RIGGED poker games - rigged decks, setups to straight up cheat players out of money.

Matt Berkey (poker pro) was talking about it a few years ago on his podcast (27:15 mark): https://www.youtube.com/live/G-TKR5ca5jI?feature=share&t=1635

Wow, initially I thought all of this was BS because who cares about playing a poker game, I do it all the time but damn if what this guy is saying is true, this is definitely racketeering and I have to say Billups should be punished for it.

He is literally the biggest POS of the story in my book because he is actively trying to ensnare new players into the scheme and ruin players lives by getting them to join rigged games they can't win.

I'm not disagreeing with you, but food for thought, there's probably a good chance Billups got taken by some shady scam, and as a result had an insane amount of debt to the mob, and then agreed to help them with this new scam to pay it off.
Because that's how the mob works.
Wouldn't be surprising at all if they targeted Billups because they knew he was an avid gambler, and he's exactly the kind of high-profile person they wanted compromised. By getting him to take part in these rigged games, it probably added an air of legitimacy since he's a well-known public figure.
Idk I'm just speculating, but that seems more likely to me than he just decided to team up with the Italian mafia to run scam poker games for a cut of the profits. But if that was the case then yeah dude is a grade-A moron and a-hole.

[Wile E. Coyote]

Anyone who says you can’t trust the justice department now apparently doesn’t realize how corrupt the justice department has been for decades, going back longer than most of us have been alive.

At least give me competent professionals to be corrupt and being shady. I can't stand having my intelligence being insulted by these absolute idiots hand writing "evidence" on items on crime scenes.

It’s counter-intuitive but the competent ones do far more damage to our country long-term.

[CIN-C-STAR]

Splitter the first Brazilian HC ever, good for him

Also a pretty regular, good dude.
Highly unlikely to be caught up in any kind of scandal.
Just loves hoops and his family and works hard by all accounts I've read. Great choice for them.

[DusterBuster]

After all the pedophile presidents happen to sneak out of the limelight their tech is working suddenly

I wouldn’t trust this justice department. It’s filled with incompetent nimcompoops. I want to see the actual charging documents and evidence before I make any judgments.

Well, the indictments are online. They seem very detailed about the rigged poker games.

Yeah, I think there's a balance of agreeing that currently leadership at the FBI and JD is a complete and utter clownshow... but the people doing this investigation and the investigation itself is not as they've been looking into this for years and started during the previous administration. So current leadership has actually very little to do with it outside of reading some statements from a podium... I'm sure Patel has eyes looking in all directions at this.

[Bad Bart]

Anyone who says you can’t trust the justice department now apparently doesn’t realize how corrupt the justice department has been for decades, going back longer than most of us have been alive.

At least give me competent professionals to be corrupt and being shady. I can't stand having my intelligence being insulted by these absolute idiots hand writing "evidence" on items on crime scenes.

It’s counter-intuitive but the competent ones do far more damage to our country long-term.

It's not counter-intuitive, it makes total sense. But we live in a society where we're taught to focus on the singular event in front of our face and completely ignore the larger context it took place in.

We should be very concerned about the what 'the competent ones' are doing since we currently have no idea. And that's what's really scary.

[LockoutSeason]

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[RalphWiggum]

How stupid and greedy do you have to be to have made around 150 million in your life, have a 5 million a year job and then get arrested for stealing what will probably turn out to be a few million bucks?

[10DayContract]

So, does mean the Lakers are the 2004 NBA Champions?

[RalphWiggum]

Of course they wont, but the sports should really end this betting nonsense. Just an awful look to support this crap that ruin way more lives than booze and drugs.

Sent from my SM-G780G using RealGM mobile app

They make way too much money off the FanDuels and Bet 365s of the world to ever cut ties at this point.

I'm all for people being able to gamble if they want but the leagues being in bed with them and the constant advertising has always rubbed me the wrong way.

[madmaxmedia]

Wow, initially I thought all of this was BS because who cares about playing a poker game, I do it all the time but damn if what this guy is saying is true, this is definitely racketeering and I have to say Billups should be punished for it.

He is literally the biggest POS of the story in my book because he is actively trying to ensnare new players into the scheme and ruin players lives by getting them to join rigged games they can't win.

I'm not disagreeing with you, but food for thought, there's probably a good chance Billups got taken by some shady scam, and as a result had an insane amount of debt to the mob, and then agreed to help them with this new scam to pay it off.
Because that's how the mob works.
Wouldn't be surprising at all if they targeted Billups because they knew he was an avid gambler, and he's exactly the kind of high-profile person they wanted compromised. By getting him to take part in these rigged games, it probably added an air of legitimacy since he's a well-known public figure.
Idk I'm just speculating, but that seems more likely to me than he just decided to team up with the Italian mafia to run scam poker games for a cut of the profits. But if that was the case then yeah dude is a grade-A moron and a-hole.

Well, he's a moron either way. I don't about 'good chance', it's a plausible or possible scenario though. Somewhat more plausible than Ballmer not knowing anything about Kawhi's deal with Aspiration.

[Effigy]

Apparently Chauncey was also giving out inside information about the team to gamblers

https://www.cbssports.com/nba/news/person-matching-chauncey-billups-description-allegedly-shared-trail-blazers-tanking-information-with-bettors/

[AleksandarN]

Jokic right now. “Don’t look into horse racing”

[Lalouie]

sports has oodles of money and no outlet

billups prolly doesn't know what he's doing. or maybe one of his dumb@$$ friends

holy shhhh...it involves the mafia

[iggymcfrack]

Why would Billups and Rozier even get involved in this? They have made so much money during their careers

Gambling addiction is real. Just ask Michael Jordan. The thrill of it is a dopamine kick, especially when it's high stakes and involves corruption like this. And famous/wealthy people often need something like this to pump their adrenaline cause they already have everything that money can buy.

Never underestimate how greedy wealthy people can be. It undergirds our whole economy. I don’t see any reason to think Billups would have a gambling addiction. He just got approached with an opportunity to cheat some people and he took it. If anything he probably just enjoyed feeling smarter than the “suckers” he was robbing.

[pepe1991]

Of course they wont, but the sports should really end this betting nonsense. Just an awful look to support this crap that ruin way more lives than booze and drugs.

Sent from my SM-G780G using RealGM mobile app

They make way too much money off the FanDuels and Bet 365s of the world to ever cut ties at this point.

I'm all for people being able to gamble if they want but the leagues being in bed with them and the constant advertising has always rubbed me the wrong way.

In Europe, entire leagues are sponsored by gambling houses. Some leagues ( actually, lot of leagues) even sold rights for name of a league to gamblign houses. For example Serbian football domestic league is called Mozart Bet super league. You can assume Mozart ain't there because they like Amadeus .
Croatian national football league is also called by it's biggest sponsor. Betting house. Every year during 38 games, at least once all favorites lose and everybody acts surprised. Shocking.

That's how involved betting houses are in sports.

Ofc in such leagues fixing & game rigging is involved. You had to be 3 years old- level naive to not figure it on your own.
Your league is your product, you want "more interesting league" than some runaway favorite of football/ basketball league winning every game. You want shocking results because that brings profit to houses.

USA, like whole world is too far gone into gambling to just "clear it up".

Dallas Mavericks are owned by Adelson family that has net worth of 40 billion dollars off gambling. Gambling industry is one of fastest raising & biggest industries in the world.