Barcoded decks, contact lenses and X-ray tables: How New York’s mafia allegedly ran illegal poker games tied to US athletes

By Alaa Elassar, CNN

(CNN) — You can picture the scene. Tucked somewhere between the glitter and grit of Manhattan, a room wafting smoke with the rhythm of a poker game seemingly like any other: Cards whisper against felt, chips click in steady tempo, and players sit around a table, guarding their hands – and secrets.

Some of the players lured to the table – seduced by celebrity faces and the illusion of fair play – are unaware they have just taken a seat at a game rigged by some members of New York’s mafia – La Cosa Nostra, authorities say.

That illusion was shattered Thursday when gambling and sports rigging schemes linked to the mob led to the arrests of 31 defendants, including Portland Trail Blazers head coach Chauncey Billups and former NBA player with the Cleveland Cavaliers and Miami Heat, Damon Jones. The pair, along with others, are “alleged to have participated in a nationwide scheme to rig illegal poker games,” according to US Attorney Joseph Nocella Jr.

Investigators described the yearslong probe – dubbed Operation Royal Flush – as a meticulous, evidence-driven effort that exposed a sprawling web of corruption stretching from organized crime to professional sports.

At the heart of each underground poker game was a carefully choreographed ballet of stars, signals and souped-up technology, details outlined by prosecutors show.

“What the victims – the fish – didn’t know is that everybody else at the poker game, from the dealer to the players, including the face cards, were in on the scam,” Nocella said.

Among the defendants in the gambling scheme are members of major American crime families, as well as current and former NBA players and coaches, New York City Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said. Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier was implicated in a second indictment alleging he used nonpublic information about upcoming NBA games to allow others to profit on betting.

Jim Trusty, Rozier’s attorney, strongly disputed the accusations, saying prosecutors characterized Rozier as a subject of their investigation and not a target.

“They appear to be taking the word of spectacularly incredible sources rather than relying on actual evidence of wrongdoing. Terry was cleared by the NBA and these prosecutors revived that non-case. Terry is not a gambler, but he is not afraid of a fight, and he looks forward to winning this fight,” Trusty added,

An attorney for Billups denied the allegations. CNN has reached out to Jones’ representatives but has not heard back.

More than $7 million was stolen from victims at the underground card games where behind the scenes, an elaborate scheme of advanced technology was tipping the scales, court documents said.

“But my message to the defendants who have been rounded up today is this, your winning streak has ended,” Nocella said. “Your luck has run out. Violating the law is a losing proposition, and you can bet on that.”

This specific quiet theater of greed, luck, and deceit is likely over.

Here’s how officials say they got away with it for so long.

The poker table

From start to finish, prosecutors say the defendants employed a host of technologically sophisticated tactics to make sure they came out on top, stripping millions from their victims.

Unbeknownst to the targets, they were seated at a poker table fitted with X-ray technology designed to read cards placed face down on the table. The games were monitored by “hidden cameras built into tables and light fixtures,” Tisch said.

Sal Piacente, President of UniverSal Game Protection Development, Inc., an expert in various ways to cheat and who consults with casinos around the world told CNN X-ray systems use cameras embedded in the table, which looked upward through the felt. When cards were precisely positioned, the cameras could identify each card and transmit that information to the shuffle machines.

The shuffling machines appeared to be randomizing the cards. In reality, they were altered to read the deck and predict who got the best hand, according to the indictment.

An unaltered shuffle machine contains cameras that alert the casino, dealer, or house if a card is missing and ensures the deck is correctly sorted, according to Piacente.

“The cheaters came up with ways of utilizing that camera as well to know what cards are being dealt and who’s getting them, and that shuffle machine is altered to transmit to an earpiece to tell the people who were going to win,” Piacente said.

During the rigged games, information about the player with the best hand was transmitted to an off-site operator who relayed the information to a person seated at the table who was in on the scheme.

That player, known as the “Quarterback” or “Driver” would then signal to other members of the team by touching a certain colored chip or tapping their chin, wrist or arm a detention letter written to the judge said. A signal was assigned to each one of the players who were in on the scheme.

Some cards had markers, or barcodes, visible only to individuals wearing “special contact lenses or eyeglasses,” the indictment said. Officials said the defendants also used electronic poker chip trays to analyze and read cards on the table.

The players

The case concerning Billups, a Basketball Hall of Famer, who was a five-time All-Star and 2004 NBA champion, involved high-stakes poker games investigators alleged were rigged.

Billups participated in illegal poker games that took place in Manhattan, Miami, Las Vegas and the Hamptons, officials say.

“Anyone who knows Chauncey Billups knows he is a man of integrity; men of integrity do not cheat and defraud others,” Billups’ attorney, Chris Heywood, said in a statement. “To believe that Chauncey Billups did what the federal government is accusing him of is to believe that he would risk his hall-of-fame legacy, his reputation, and his freedom. He would not jeopardize those things for anything, let alone a card game.”

Billups and Jones were dubbed “Face Cards,” professional athletes whose mere presence in the illegal and rigged games offered star power meant to legitimize the games to “attract victims to the games.”

One of the defendants mentioned in the indictment observed one victim seemed eager to give Billups his money because he was “starstruck.” This reaction was intentional. Former professional athletes were used to help lure wealthy victims into the games, according to court documents.

“Once the game was underway, the defendants fleeced the victims out of tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars per game,” Nocella said. “The defendants used a variety of very sophisticated cheating technologies, some of which were provided by other defendants in exchange for a share of the profits from the scheme.”

Members of the conspiracy often texted in real time about the scheme, at times coordinating deliberate losses to keep the victim playing longer or to avoid arousing suspicion, court documents said.

The NBA said Billups and Rozier are on immediate leave from their teams in the league’s first statement since the news of their arrests.

“We are in the process of reviewing the federal indictments announced today,” the league said in a statement on Thursday.

The consequences

Members of the illicit poker scheme at times threatened and resorted to violence when victims failed to pay their debts on time, prosecutors alleged.

“Watch what’s good now,” defendant Zhen Hu, identified as one of the game organizers in the indictment, allegedly texted one victim in 2022 who had not yet paid a gambling debt. “You’ve been running your mouth unchecked.”

Hu allegedly punched the unnamed victim in the face, a move prosecutors say he confirmed in a message to an associate, “I punched somebody in the face the other day, s**ts unraveling quick.”

Prosecutors also alleged Hu and three other individuals approached the unnamed victim again sometime later, and the victim was again attacked.

“What you did was cowardly and ridiculous,” the victim texted Hu nearly a year later, according to prosecutors. “And then u send a bunch of goons to solve your problems.”

Some of the defendants and their coconspirators also committed acts of violence, Nocella said, “including the gunpoint robbery of a person in order to obtain a rigged shuffling machine and extortions that were perpetrated against victims in order to ensure they repaid their gambling debts.”

Hu is detained in New York pending trial on charges of a crime of violence, which carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison. CNN has not been able to determine whether Hu has legal representation.

The Mafia

In New York City, five major Italian American mafia families have long dominated organized crime. Four of those five families are involved in the schemes, prosecutors said.

Thirteen members and associates of those families are among the defendants in the two cases, according to Christopher Raia, the assistant director in charge of the FBI’s New York Field Office. Raia said an illegal gambling operation created a “financial pipeline” for La Cosa Nostra.

In New York, the four families supported the rigged poker games and collected a share of their profits, according to the indictment. One of these games, held primarily in a nondescript building in Manhattan’s Kips Bay neighborhood, was affiliated with the Bonanno family, while another, based mainly in Greenwich Village, was connected to the Gambino family, the indictment says.

“These operatives included capos and multiple soldiers from the Bonanno, Gambino, Lucchese and Genovese crime families, bringing four of the five families together in a single indictment is extraordinarily rare,” Tisch said. “It reflects how deep and how far this investigation reached, and the skill and the persistence it took to get here. That work uncovered a deliberate, technologically sophisticated operation designed to carry out their crimes.”

While the Mafia no longer wields the national influence it once did, the FBI warns it remains a significant threat in the New York metropolitan area, as well as in New England, Philadelphia, Chicago, and Detroit.

CNN’s Elise Hammond contributed to this report.

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