Georgia Locals Arrested As Part Of NBA Betting Scandal

By now, you’ve surely heard about the newest NBA betting scandal involving Chauncey Billups, Terry Rozier, and ex-player and coach Damon Jones. That is a national story that even stretches outside of the sports world.

It’s the biggest scandal since legalized sports betting went mainstream, starting in 2018. We’ve seen some players busted in NBA and MLB, but not a 10-year-plus veteran like Rozier, who banked upward of $100 million in salaries.

Billups, though, was a bigger shoe that dropped. Not only is he an active head coach, but this guy’s a Hall of Famer. Called “Big Shot” during his playing career, Billups is one of the memorable names of the 2000s-era NBA. His involvement really added takes to this case that other scandals lacked.

But what’s gone under the radar in this ongoing investigation is everyone else involved. The FBI didn’t just arrest these three NBA players. No, there was 34 total arrests — most of which are people unknown to the public. A few of them even have ties to the state of Georgia. Keep on reading, and we’ll explain what’s going on.

3 Georgia Men Arrested

FBI Director Kash Patel announced the arrests in October. The 34 arrested spanned 11 states, which shows the scale of this alleged operation.

Here’s how Georgia fits into the equation: three people from Middle Georgia were arrested. The arrests included Tony “Black Tony” Goodson of Forsyth, accused of supplying the cheating tech; John “John South” Mazzola of Gray, who actually played on the rigged teams; and Kenny Hans (who’s originally out of Queens but was caught in Georgia). All three are out on bond and facing charges like wire-fraud conspiracy and money laundering.

The three men partook in the poker scandal, not the NBA one. Yes, there are two different operations at play here. NBA players are involved in both, but it’s the poker one that is more far-reaching. We’ll explain in the next section.

Poker Games Were Straight Out Of A Movie

This isn’t a side plot of the movie “Casino” or “Goodfellas”, it’s the real damn thing. The poker scheme was industrial-grade cheating. It involved pro athletes, Italian mobs, and insane tech to rig poker games.

According to the FBI, the organizers built these illegal poker nights around one goal: lure high-rollers in, make them feel comfortable, then bleed them dry. To get people through the door, they used former pro athletes as the “face cards.” Guys with name recognition like Billups and possibly others (more on that soon).

The tech involved was wild too. The crew reportedly used altered shuffling machines that could stack the deck on command. They had specially designed contact lenses that let their players read invisible markings on the cards. And the craziest part? Investigators say the tables themselves had built-in X-ray systems that allowed the cheating team to see card values before anyone else even touched them.

One detail that stuck out: the victims actually knew the games were illegal. That wasn’t the surprise. What they didn’t know was that the entire thing was rigged from top to bottom. They walked in thinking they were taking on other underground players. In reality, they were sitting at a table designed to empty their wallets.

FBI investigators say the operation stole at least $7 million since 2019 — and that’s likely a conservative estimate. With the kind of tech and coordination described, it’s hard to believe the cheating wasn’t even more widespread. Three of the so-called Five Families — the Gambinos, Bonnanos, and Genoveses — were allegedly involved. Again, evidence of how widespread this is when you have Italian rivals in cahoots with each other.

So yes, the NBA names are getting the headlines. But this poker ring? This is the backbone of the entire case. This is the part that exposes just how organized, calculated, and professional the whole scheme really was.

Are Other NBA Players Involved?

Alright, this is where things get really interesting: who else had the same role as Billups? The FBI hasn’t caught anyone else (yet), but you have to think there were other athletes used to lure these big-spending players. Billups was popular, but he alone doesn’t have the name value to keep this operation afloat.

This is only speculation for now. We want to make it clear, no one else has been confirmed, but there’s been chatter of other players. One of those names is Kevin Garnett. His name was floated by sports reporter Pablo Torre — who has exposed many sports stories as of late.

Torres only said Garnett played in a rigged game in 2019. He stopped short of saying Garnett was involved in the cheating on poker or NBA betting. For all we know, he was scammed too. But… there’s a possibility, like Billups, he was a “face” used to lure the whale players.

Another name brought up was Garnett’s long-time teammate, Paul Pierce. “The Truth” was mentioned by a podcaster years ago. The podcast resurfaced, and it involved pro poker player Matt Berkey. In it, Berkey mentions the rigged games with NBA players. He brings up Billups and Pierce in it.

Again, we’re only speculating, but this story has the potential to go from bad to horrendous for the NBA given how popular of players both Garnett and Pierce were (more than Billups).