https://basketballsphere.com/en/fbi-nba-mafia-gambling-ring/FBI busts multi-million-dollar NBA gambling ring linked to mafia, involving players and coaches across 11 states.
The FBI says it dismantled a “multi-million-dollar gambling ring” allegedly tied to major crime families and NBA players and coaches, calling the fraud “mind-boggling.”
“This operation involved an expansive effort across 11 states, arresting 34 subjects, including multiple NBA players and coaches, who allegedly took advantage of their own positions of power to rig gambling systems for their own benefit — eventually funneling money to La Cosa Nostra, enriching some of the most notorious criminal networks in the world,” FBI Director Patel says.
From what I have read in other sources, the operation had two parts:
1- Poker game scams in which NBA players were used to attract whales and defraud them. They used glasses and contact lenses that allowed them to see the cards, as well as rigged shuffling machines.
2- Players who warned that they were going to retire early in a game due to discomfort or injury, so that their accomplices could bet that the player's statistics in the game would be worse.
So we have one scam in poker games and another in sports betting.
