Chauncey Billups enjoyed a Hall of Fame career highlighted by multiple All-Star appearances and a Finals MVP trophy won with the Detroit Pistons.
After retiring, Billups spent time in the media before moving his way up the coaching ranks, eventually earning one of 30 NBA jobs as the Portland Trail Blazers’ lead man in 2021. One game into his fifth season as an NBA head coach, Billups was implicated in a gambling scandal and arrested by the FBI for his alleged role, a surprising development due to the shocking nature of such allegations.
However shocking, Billups’ role in the alleged gambling scandal is not the first legal trouble he has found himself in.
MORE: What to know about the NBA’s illegal betting scandals
Chauncey Billups sexual assault allegation
As a member of the Boston Celtics in 1997, Billups and then-teammate Ron Mercer were accused of sexually assaulting a woman at the home of teammate Antoine Walker.
The civil suit alleges that Billups, Mercer, and Walker’s roommate assaulted the woman at Walker’s condo. The group had been at a Boston comedy club earlier in the evening of Nov. 9, 1997.
One day later, the woman underwent a medical examination that revealed injuries that were consistent with her testimony. While no criminal charges were filed, Billups and Mercer settled a civil suit in 2000.
The incident resurfaced during Billups’ interview process to become Portland’s head coach. The franchise acknowledged that a large part of the process was spent revisiting the allegations, and Billups’ admissions to franchise officials were consistent with findings from an independent investigation.
A 2021 report from Adrian Wojnarowski added that, “The Blazers ultimately found nothing that they believed disqualified Billups from becoming the franchise’s new head coach.”
MORE: What to know about Chauncey Billups’ arrest and mob ties
Chauncey Billups gambling investigation
On Oct. 23, 2025, the FBI arrested Billups as part of an investigation into illegal gambling activity.
Billups was mentioned by name in an “illegal poker operation tied to the Mafia,” per ABC News. Billups was implicated in a poker scheme in which he and others allegedly swindled poker players out of significant amounts of money.
The scheme included X-ray tables to scan playing cards, custom glasses with the ability to read cards, and rigged card-shuffling machines, according to Nocella. Victims were allegedly lured by celebrities like Billups into participating.
In addition to the poker scheme, Billups fits the profile of an unnamed co-conspirator linked to suspicious activity around a Trail Blazers game in 2023.
Within the FBI’s indictment, “Co-Conspirator 8” is described as a former NBA player who played from 1997 to 2014, was an NBA coach since 2021, and an Oregon resident. These descriptors align perfectly with Billups’ NBA career.
He is alleged to have disclosed confidential information before it was publicly available for a game played on March 24, 2023. Long before an injury report was made available, Co-Conspirator 8 told a defendant that the Trail Blazers would be “tanking” a game by resting key players.
Portland sat its top four per-game scorers, lost by 28 points, and a number of bettors won significant money on bets placed.
MORE NBA GAMBLING SCANDAL NEWS:
