Text Messages Suggest Rigged Poker Games Evolved Over Time to Reduce Suspicion — Billups Lost Intentionally, Says ESPN

A new ESPN report provided more details on the allegations of rigged poker games involving Trail Blazers head coach Chauncey Billups and other NBA figures. It provides new evidence that Billups was not only aware of cheating taking place, but that he conspired to lose in some of the games so as not to arouse suspicion.

According to the FBI’s indictment, the conspirators bilked unwitting victims out of more than $7 million across a series of poker games in multiple cities across the U.S. They allegedly used technology, including rigged shufflers and hidden cameras, to determine the winning hands and communicated that information using a system of signals.

Text Messages Implicate Billups

The ESPN report, authored by well-connected NBA reporter Ramona Shelburne, said that investigators are in possession of text messages from the alleged conspirators who organized the games where Billups was intended to lose. However, none of the messages came directly from or went directly to Billups himself.

Some have speculated that Billups and other celebrity lures to the poker games could simply feign ignorance as a defense, saying they were unaware the games were anything but honest. If the ESPN report is accurate, that explanation seems unlikely to fly.

However, the report doesn’t provide any smoking-gun texts coming directly from Billups. The report instead described a text chain between two other indicted individuals, Robert Stroud and Sophia Wei. Both were listed as members of the cheating team, with Stroud additionally having roles in organizing games and procuring cheating devices.

The cheating team allegedly plotted to have Billups and another co-conspirator, Eric “Spook” Earnest, lose some of the money to a third co-conspirator after they’d siphoned money away from a victim.

“They already know all the signals,” Wei said to Stroud, seemingly indicating Billups as an active participant in the scheme.

After the game, which took place in October 2020, Billups received a $50,000 payment from Wei.

Billups’ attorney released a statement denying his client’s involvement in such a scheme.

“Anyone who knows Chauncey Billups knows he is a man of integrity; men of integrity do not cheat and defraud others,” he said. “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.”

Did Alleged Cheating Scheme Evolve?

The picture ESPN’s report paints of the game stands in stark contrast to the game described by high-stakes pro Matt Berkey on his podcast. His account of things predates the indictments and is second-hand, coming from friends he knew who said they’d played in a rigged game.

That telling depicted a game that was the opposite of subtle.

People who clearly, like, didn’t even understand the rules of no-limit hold’em are just, like, jamming hundreds of big blinds in with, like, a gutty. And then just drilling it. Only the pros are losing.

If that description and ESPN’s are both accurate, that suggests a scheme that may have evolved over time as suspicions increased. Although the games only came to public attention last week, there are indications that the cheating was well-known in poker circles through a ‘whisper network’ of sorts.

The FBI indictment describes a multitude of cheating devices being used, suggesting an evolution in the technology behind the cheating. But this latest account suggests the team may have switched up not only the mechanisms used to cheat, but the tactics as well.

The ESPN report says text messages indicate Billups and Earnest had “each apparently put a bad beat on the same wealthy fish.” The team then allegedly brought a new player into the game for the express purpose of having those two lose to that player to reduce suspicion.

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