Feds Indicate Chauncey Billups Allegedly Leaked Confidential Trail Blazers Info To Bettor
Chauncey Billups Allegedly Leaked Team Info To Bettor ... Feds Indicate
Published
Federal prosecutors indicated in court documents this month that Chauncey Billups allegedly leaked confidential information about his Trail Blazers to at least one bettor.
Billups appears to be listed as "Co-Conspirator 8" in a now-unsealed indictment filed by feds last week in a New York court.
The clues aren't hard to decipher ... given "Co-Conspirator 8" is described as "an NBA player who played from roughly 1997 to 2014 who went on to become a coach in 2021."
Billups, of course, broke into the Association with the Celtics in 1997, before he wrapped his career with Detroit in 2014. In 2021, he was named the head coach of Portland.
According to the docs, "Co-Conspirator 8" informed a bettor on March 24, 2023 that the Blazers, who were 32-40 at the time, were tanking ... and were going to rest some key players for their matchup with the Chicago Bulls.
"The information," prosecutors wrote in the documents, "that the Trail Blazers would be tanking and not playing [their star player] was not available to the public, including the Betting Companies."
The bettor then allegedly took the information to another bettor and had them place a wager on the Blazers losing.
A short time later, the betting odds changed once the Blazers' plan to sit players became public.
Portland did go on to lose to Chicago, 124-96.
The feds did not say at their press conference on Thursday that Billups was involved in the insider sports betting conspiracy that resulted in the arrest of Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier earlier Thursday. They did, though, say he was placed into custody for his alleged role in an elaborate scheme to rig illegal poker games that involved the Mafia.
