NEW YORK — A current NBA player, former player and current NBA head coach were arrested Thursday as part of the federal takedown of a pair of sweeping gambling conspiracies, including a mob plot that cheated players in rigged underground poker games out of millions of dollars.

Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier, Portland Trail Blazers head coach Chauncey Billups and former Cleveland Cavaliers player and coach Damon Jones were charged in Brooklyn Federal Court in a pair of indictments that netted 34 defendants, including members of La Cosa Nostra and a pair of Instagram gambling influencers.

The poker scheme, as described in court documents and by federal authorities, played out like a Hollywood film — the mob ran high-stakes games in Manhattan, Las Vegas, the Hamptons and Miami.

The conspirators used Billups and Jones as the lures to reel in deep-pocketed gamblers, or “fish,” who wanted a chance to take on an NBA great. But those players were destined to lose $7 million total, with one unlucky gambler losing $1.8 million, authorities said.

The masterminds behind the rigged Texas Hold ‘Em games used an array of high-tech cheating devices, including a modified automatic card shuffler that predicted which player had the best hand and sent that data to an off-site operator, the feds allege.

That operator would send texts to the “quarterback” or “driver” at the table, who in turn would secretly signal to the other players how to bet.

The conspiracy also used an X-ray table to read cards when they were face-down, a poker chip tray with hidden cameras and special contact lenses and glasses to read pre-marked cards, prosecutors said.

Billups and Jones were the “face cards” — the big names who would pull in the high-rollers, the feds said, and Jones had no problem texting about his role in the criminal conspiracy.

In one alleged text, he asked co-conspirator Robert Stroud to front him $10,000 before a game in East Hamptons: “God really blessed me that u have action for me because I needed it today bad.”

When another co-conspirator gave him advice on how to play, urging him to fold whenever he had doubt about a hand, Jones replied, “Lol man y’all call Djones in cause y’all know I know what I’m doing!! Let me hibachi like Gilbert Arenas.”

Arenas, another former NBA player, was busted on federal gambling charges in California in July.

Rozier and Jones are also accused of leaking insider information to betters in a separate sports gambling scheme that’s tied to former Toronto Raptors forward Jontay Porter — who pleaded guilty in a game-rigging conspiracy last year.

The duo, along with four other indicted accomplices, have been linked to bet-rigging in seven pro games in 2023 and 2024 —including one Charlotte Hornets game on March 23, 2023, when Rozier tipped off his longtime pal and co-defendant Deniro Laster, 30, that he’d be leaving the game early because of a purported injury.

Laster and accomplices Marves “Vezino Locks” Fairley, and Shane “Sugar” Hennen, who both sold sports betting picks on their Instagram accounts, used that info to either place of steer more than $200,000 in bets, prosecutors allege.

Jones, who was an unofficial assistant coach for the Lakers in 2022 and 2023, used his position to leak info about a Feb. 9, 2023, game with the Milwaukee Bucks, once again taking to text message, the feds allege: “Get a big bet on Milwaukee tonight before the information is out! [Player 3] is out tonight. Bet enough so Djones can eat to [sic] now!!!”

Rozier was taken into custody in Orlando, Fla., and Billups was arrested in Oregon, where he is expected to make an initial court appearance on Thursday, sources said. Indictments against them were unsealed in Brooklyn Federal Court on Thursday.

Brooklyn U.S. Attorney Joseph Nocella Jr. called the scam “one of the most brazen sports corruption schemes since online sports betting became widely legalized in the United States.”

“Your winning streak has ended, your luck has run out,” he added. “Violating the law is a losing proposition and you can bet on that.”

FBI Director Kash Patel called the indictments a “historic arrest across a wide-sweeping criminal enterprise.”

NBA officials said in a statement they are reviewing the indictments and have suspended Rozier and Billups.

“We take these allegations with the utmost seriousness,” the statement says. “The integrity of our game remains our top priority.”

Rozier was in uniform as the Heat opened the 2025 season playing the Magic in Orlando Wednesday evening, though he did not play in the game as he deals with a hamstring injury. He was taken into custody in Orlando early Thursday morning.

His lawyer, Jim Trusty, did not immediately respond to a call for comment by the Associated Press. Trusty previously told ESPN that Rozier was told that an initial investigation determined he did nothing wrong after he met with NBA and FBI officials in 2023, the sports network reported.

Rozier is in his 11th year in the league with 13.9 points per game over 665 games played. He was a key contributor for the Boston Celtics on playoff runs in 2016-19.

The mob’s involvement in the poker scheme brought the specter of violence and extortion into the mix.

The Bonanno family ran one of the games out of 147 Lexington Ave. in Manhattan, while the Gambino family ran a second game at 80 Washington Place in Manhattan, the feds allege. The games would merge in 2023 so they could use Stroud’s technology, the feds say,

When Hennen asked one of the poker scheme’s architects, Ammar “Flappy” Awawdeh, in a July 2023 text which crime family Awawdeh was working with, Awawdeh responded, “Gambino sir,” according to prosecutors.

Juliuis Ziliani, a made Bonanno member, and Bonanno associate Thomas Gelardo were called in to deliver threats and administer at least one beating to gambling victims who couldn’t pay, the feds allege.

Gambino associate Nicholas Minucci took part in a Sept. 7, 2023, robbery where members of the conspiracy took one of the rigged card shufflers at gunpoint from another person involved in crooked poker games, the feds allege.

And when Awawdeh tried to re-start the poker game at 80 Washington Place after the merger in fall 2023, Ziliani, Gelardo and others stormed in with guns to shut it down, the feds say.

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