The NBA announced Tuesday that the semifinals and championship of its third Emirates NBA Cup will be played December 13 and 16 at T-Mobile Arena. (Tickets are available at NBAEvents.com/cup.) But the in-season tournament’s third annual return to Las Vegas comes amid a cloud of fallout from a massive federal probe into illegal gambling involving NBA personnel and organized crime figures, with Sin City acting as a key operational hub.
House of Cards
On October 23 — just days into the regular season — the FBI arrested 34 individuals across 11 states. They included Portland Trail Blazers head coach Chauncey Billups and former NBA guard Damon Jones, both of whom were charged in a Las Vegas-based poker cheating ring backed by four New York crime families: Bonanno, Gambino, Lucchese and Genovese.
Court documents detail games in luxury suites and private villas at the Wynn, Bellagio, Cosmopolitan and in off-Strip mansions, where victims lost at least $7.15 million since 2019. Prosecutors say Billups and Jones served as “face cards” to lure wealthy marks into games using shufflers modified to scan and transmit card data to off-site spotters via earpieces, infrared contact lenses, X-ray tables, and poker-chip analyzers.
Mafia enforcers collected debts — sometimes at gunpoint — and once robbed a prototype shuffler in a Las Vegas hotel parking lot. Jones, arrested at an unnamed Strip casino, allegedly laundered winnings through crypto and shell companies.
The Bad Kind of Tip-Offs
In a separate NBA prop-betting scheme, Jones and Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier (along with four others) were indicted for wire fraud and money-laundering. They are charged with feeding non-public information — such as injury reports and lineup decisions — to sports-betting syndicates.
A key incident unfolded during a March 23, 2023 game between the Charlotte Hornets (Rozier’s team at the time) and New Orleans Pelicans in Charlotte. Prosecutors allege that Rozier tipped off associates about his planned early exit due to a fabricated foot injury, prompting over $200,000 in bets on his “under” prop lines for points, rebounds and assists.
Rozier played just nine minutes, scoring five points and grabbing four rebounds before leaving with two assists. The bets reportedly yielded tens of thousands in profits, with proceeds delivered to his Florida home.
NBA Commissioner Adam Silver called both scandals “deeply disturbing,” vowing full cooperation with the probe.
Full Court Press
According to a press release from the NBA, this year’s Emirates Cup will tip off with group play from October 31 through November 28, when all 30 league teams will play four games on designated “cup nights.” Eight teams — the six group winners and one wild card from each conference — will advance to “knockout rounds,” which consist of single-elimination games in the quarterfinals (December 9-10 in NBA team markets), the semifinals and the championship.
While the league’s decision to once again host its showcase event in Las Vegas was planned since at least July 2025, the decision to go ahead with the series in the face of the scandal comes off as tone-deaf.
The league’s $76 billion, 11-year media deals lean heavily on sportsbook integrations, as prop markets exploded after the US Supreme Court struck down a decades-old federal ban on sports betting in 2018.
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