Damon Jones Pleads Guilty in NBA Gambling Fraud Case

On April 28, 2026, former NBA player and assistant coach Damon Jones became the first person to plead guilty in a sweeping federal gambling investigation that has rattled professional basketball since arrests went public in October 2025. Standing before Brooklyn federal court, Jones entered guilty pleas to two counts of conspiracy to commit wire fraud — one for leaking non-public injury information to sports bettors, and another for his role in a rigged high-stakes poker operation with ties to organized crime. The case raises serious questions about the integrity of professional basketball and what it means for everyday sports bettors who wager on the game in good faith.

Who Is Damon Jones

Jones, 49, is a former NBA combo guard who played for 10 teams over 11 seasons from 1999 to 2009, earning more than $20 million in career salary. He was best known as a specialist shooter who thrived alongside star players who drew defensive attention — most memorably during his stint with the Miami Heat in 2004-05, when he made 225 three-pointers and shot 43.2 percent from deep. He also spent three seasons (2005-2008) with the Cleveland Cavaliers alongside LeBron James, making a memorable game-winning shot in the 2006 playoffs to clinch a first-round series against the Washington Wizards.

After retiring from playing in 2012, Jones leveraged his relationships and his reputation as a shooting specialist into a coaching career. He joined the Cleveland Cavaliers organization in 2014 as a shooting consultant and eventually served as a full-time assistant coach from 2016 to 2018, including during the Cavaliers’ 2016 NBA championship run. He later served as an informal volunteer coach with the Los Angeles Lakers during the 2022-23 season — a connection that would prove central to the federal charges against him.

What He Pleaded Guilty To

Jones admitted to two distinct conspiracies, both involving the exploitation of his insider access to NBA circles. In the sports betting case, Jones acknowledged that between December 2022 and March 2024, he sold or attempted to sell non-public injury information about Lakers players to a network of sports bettors. Prosecutors say he informed co-conspirators on February 9, 2023, that LeBron James would not play that night against the Milwaukee Bucks, sending a text message that read: “Get a big bet on Milwaukee tonight before the information is out!” — James missed the game with ankle soreness and the Lakers lost. In a separate incident on January 15, 2024, Jones allegedly tipped bettors that Anthony Davis would see limited playing time against the Oklahoma City Thunder due to an injury, collecting approximately $2,500 for the information.

In court, Jones stated plainly that he “used insider information that I obtained as a result of my relationships as a former player” and acknowledged that his actions violated the NBA’s code of conduct and the terms of service on sports betting websites.

The poker case is a different kind of fraud entirely. Prosecutors allege that Jones was used as a “face card” — a celebrity figure whose presence attracted wealthy, unsuspecting players to high-stakes games in Miami and the Hamptons. Jones admitted that he knew those games were rigged and that players were being cheated. The operation used altered shuffling machines, hidden cameras, X-ray tables, and specially designed contact lenses to give organizers an advantage over victims. The rigged games were connected to the Gambino, Genovese, and Bonanno crime families, who took cuts of the winnings and used violence and threats to collect debts. The total losses to victims exceeded $9.5 million, and the broader poker operation defrauded players of approximately $7 million.

The Broader Investigation

Jones was arrested in October 2025 along with 33 other defendants, making him one of three people charged in both of the related federal indictments. The others swept up in the case included Portland Trail Blazers head coach Chauncey Billups, who is alleged to have participated in the rigged poker operation and passed insider information about a Trail Blazers lineup to a co-conspirator, and former Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier, who is accused of faking an injury and leaving a March 2023 game early so co-conspirators could cash in on his performance “unders.” Both Billups and Rozier have denied the charges and remain on NBA administrative leave.

The federal investigation grew in part from an earlier case involving former Toronto Raptors player Jontay Porter, who had already pleaded guilty to sharing inside information with bettors and deliberately underperforming in games so prop bets would hit. The FBI and the NYPD’s Joint Organized Crime Task Force began tracking unusual betting patterns in 2023, with Jones’ case representing one of the clearest paper trails — prosecutors have text message evidence of him actively soliciting bets. For bettors wanting to understand the NBA betting landscape better, our NBA betting guide covers the key markets and what to watch for.

What This Means for Sports Bettors

For ordinary bettors, the Damon Jones guilty plea underscores a fundamental asymmetry in the sports betting marketplace. When insiders with direct locker room access are feeding non-public injury and lineup information to a network of bettors, the lines being set by sportsbooks are being moved on corrupted data. Bettors who wagered on the Lakers to beat the Bucks on February 9, 2023, were betting into a market that a group of people had already manipulated with information they could never access.

The specific concern highlighted by the NBA itself is player prop bets. In a memo sent to all 30 teams following the October 2025 arrests, league executives flagged that “proposition bets on individual player performance involve heightened integrity concerns and require additional scrutiny.” The NBA has said it is exploring AI-based monitoring tools to detect suspicious betting patterns in real time, and Commissioner Adam Silver has called for stronger federal oversight of the sports betting industry. For bettors who wager heavily on player props — especially on performance “unders” — these cases are a reminder that some losing bets may have been the result of a tilted playing field. Using our player prop search to shop lines across books remains a useful tool, though no amount of line-shopping protects against insider manipulation.

NBA Rules and What Happens Next

The NBA prohibits all team personnel from sharing non-public information related to players or games with anyone who might use it for wagering purposes. Violations can result in substantial fines, suspensions, or permanent bans from the league. The league banned Jontay Porter for life in April 2024 after concluding he had bet on games and deliberately underperformed. However, the NBA’s internal investigative capabilities have clear limits — in fact, the league reviewed unusual betting patterns involving Rozier in 2024 and cleared him, only for federal authorities to later uncover evidence the league could not reach on its own.

Jones is scheduled to be sentenced on January 6, 2027. The sentencing guidelines for the sports betting case call for 21 to 27 months in prison. In the poker case, Jones faces a potential sentence of 48 to 63 months after prosecutors agreed to subtract 15 months in exchange for the guilty plea. He also agreed to forfeit $73,000 across the two cases. Jones has stated he is not cooperating with prosecutors, meaning other co-defendants still face trial. The broader investigation remains open, and prosecutors have indicated that additional individuals connected to NBA circles may still be implicated.