**NYC Mafiosos and NBA Stars Used High-Tech Gadgets and Old-School Tricks to Swindle $7 Million in Rigged Poker Scheme, Prosecutors Say**
New York City mafiosos and NBA stars allegedly teamed up in a sprawling backroom poker scam that swindled unsuspecting high-rollers out of $7 million, according to a bombshell indictment unsealed Thursday. The years-long con exploited a mix of “advanced wireless technologies” and traditional gambling tricks to cheat victims in illegal poker games.
The indictment details a sophisticated operation involving a network of operatives who monitored games remotely and communicated with insiders planted at the poker tables. Some of these insiders were actual players working in concert to manipulate the unlucky targets.
At the heart of the scheme were tampered card shuffling machines. Mobsters from four of New York’s notorious Five Families—Lucchese, Genovese, Gambino, and Bonanno—allegedly rigged the devices with concealed card readers and computerized analyzers. These machines would identify the best hands and wirelessly transmit the information to operators outside the game room.
> “At the Rigged Games, the members of the Cheating Teams used card shuffling machines that were purportedly randomly shuffling the playing cards to ensure fairness,” the indictment states. “However, the Rigged Shuffling Machines were secretly altered to use concealed technology.”
Once the operator decoded the cards, they would send cellphone messages to accomplices seated at the table. These players used secret signals to orchestrate betting strategies aimed at manipulating the victim’s decisions and maximizing losses.
In some cases, the poker table itself was rigged. Scammers allegedly installed surfaces equipped with X-ray cameras capable of reading face-down cards on the felt. Additionally, “decoy cellular telephones” were used similarly to scan and analyze cards in real-time.
Perhaps most astonishingly, poker cards were sometimes marked with tiny symbols visible only to players wearing specially designed glasses or contact lenses, allowing cheaters to see the cards’ values while their victims remained completely unaware.
To make matters worse, much of this cheating technology is readily available online, with some sites advertising such devices for just a few hundred thousand dollars.
But the cheating did not start or end solely at the game table. The con began long before victims sat down, and once the cards were dealt, the stakes—and the intimidation—could become terrifying.
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### High-Profile NBA Involvement
NBA players, including former stars, were reportedly key participants in the scheme. Prosecutors say mafiosos lured their high-roller targets—known in the criminal circle as “fish”—to these secret poker games using former NBA players called “face cards.” Hall of Famer and Portland Trail Blazers head coach Chauncey Billups is named among those allegedly involved.
These players were said to be in on the scam, receiving cuts of the illicit proceeds. Sometimes, every player at the table except the victim was part of the cheating team, artificially winning and losing hands to coax the mark into betting larger sums.
One series of games in the summer of 2023 reportedly netted $1.8 million from a single victim. According to prosecutors, mobsters then employed “threats and intimidation” to ensure the cheaters were paid.
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### Official Statements and Legal Proceedings
“Through the Rigged Poker Scheme, the defendants and their co-conspirators defrauded victims of millions of dollars,” the indictment from the US Attorney for the Eastern District of New York read.
“Victims of the Rigged Poker Scheme believed they were participating in ‘straight’ illegal poker games and that they were gambling against other participants on equal footing,” the document added. “In reality, however, the defendants and their co-conspirators, who constituted the remaining participants purportedly playing in the poker games, worked together on cheating teams.”
The fraudulent poker games reportedly began no later than 2019, taking place mostly in the heart of New York City.
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### Crime Families Involved
Prosecutors have implicated members of four of the city’s most notorious crime families in the scheme:
– Lucchese
– Genovese
– Gambino La Cosa Nostra
– Bonanno
Together with the involvement of NBA personalities, this alliance allegedly orchestrated one of the most audacious gambling scams in recent memory.
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Stay tuned for the latest updates on the NBA gambling scandal and related legal developments.
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**Related Coverage:**
– NBA gambling scandal live updates: 4 teams, 4 Mafia families teamed up for $7M scheme, officials say
– NBAers Chauncey Billups, ‘Scary Terry’ Rozier arrested in major gambling bust involving 4 Mafia families, LA Lakers and LeBron James
– Who is Damon Jones? The other NBA player and LeBron James friend in middle of FBI betting, poker arrests
– Lakers, Raptors, Hornets, Trail Blazers involved in NBA gambling scandal: DOJ
https://nypost.com/2025/10/23/us-news/how-mafiosos-and-nba-stars-used-rigged-card-shufflers-x-ray-tables-and-secret-contact-lenses-in-poker-scam/