Tim Donaghy warns the “real” scandal is still coming as mafia ties rock the NBA

Former NBA referee Tim Donaghy knows what a rigged game looks like, and even he sounds stunned by what’s unfolding. In an interview following the arrests of Chauncey Billups and Terry Rozier, Donaghy said this is “just the tip of the iceberg.” He believes the next wave of corruption won’t come from the pros, but from college basketball, where players with no shot at the NBA are “ripe for fixing.”

Tim Donaghy warns the “real” scandal is still coming:

NEW: Ex-NBA Ref Tim Donaghy Says the Real Scandal Is Coming

“I think this is just the tip of the iceberg… you're going to see maybe a more of a bigger scandal coming out of the college level, because you have these young athletes that aren't going to make it to the next level,… pic.twitter.com/PVN5OLsbKK

— UngaTheGreat (@UngaTheGreat) October 24, 2025

“You’re going to see maybe a bigger scandal coming out of the college level,” Donaghy said. “You have these young athletes that aren’t going to make it to the next level, and somebody is going to offer them money to maybe fix a game.”

The FBI’s announcement on Thursday made it clear that this wasn’t some isolated, one-off gambling case. It was a full-blown La Cosa Nostra operation, one that had its hands deep in the NBA, underground poker rooms, and the modern online betting world.

The FBI Cracks Down

The Federal Bureau of Investigation revealed that 34 people were arrested, including Portland Trail Blazers head coach Chauncey Billups, Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier, and former player Damon Jones. FBI Director Kash Patel said the case uncovered “fraud on the grand stage of the NBA” and that the probe had direct ties to La Cosa Nostra crime families.

“Not only did we crack into the fraud these perpetrators committed on the grand stage of the NBA,” Patel said, “but we also executed a system of justice against La Cosa Nostra to include the Bonanno, Gambino, Genovese, and Lucchese crime families.”

The FBI says the schemes involved both sports-rigging operations and rigged poker games that used high-tech cheating devices like X-ray poker tables, rigged card shufflers, and contact lenses that could read invisible ink markings on the cards.

According to U.S. Attorney Joseph Nocella, the poker games were held in Manhattan, the Hamptons, Las Vegas, and Miami. Billups and Jones allegedly served as “face cards” which boils down to being celebrity bait meant to lure wealthy marks who thought they were buying a seat at a table with NBA guys.

What the victims didn’t know was that everyone else at the table, from the dealers to the players, was in on the scam.

La Cosa Nostra’s Long Shadow Over Sports

The indictment reads like a history lesson in organized crime. The Bonanno, Gambino, Genovese, and Lucchese families were all named, marking yet another entry in the mob’s long and complicated relationship with American sports.

According to the FBI, La Cosa Nostra evolved from the Sicilian Mafia and has operated in New York since the 1920s. Its reach extended into cities like Philadelphia, Detroit, Chicago, and throughout New England, infiltrating industries where money and competition collide and sports have always been an easy target.

This isn’t the first time organized crime has rigged a scoreboard.

• In the 1950s and 60s, Lucchese soldier Frank “Frankie” Carbo and his partner Frank “Blinky” Palermo ran boxing like a private casino, using threats and payoffs to control title fights. Their arrests exposed decades of mob control in the sport and led to reforms that reshaped professional boxing.
• In 1951, New York prosecutors uncovered a massive college basketball point-shaving scheme involving City College of New York and Long Island University players who accepted bribes from mob-connected gambling rings. More than 30 indictments followed, and several players were banned from the NBA for life.
• By 1978, the mob had moved to Boston College, where Lucchese associates Henry Hill and Jimmy “the Gent” Burke (of Goodfellas fame) paid players to manipulate scores. When the FBI broke the case, it exposed another layer of Mafia influence in American sports.

Fast-forward to today, and those same crime families are still in the mix, still finding ways to turn competition into profit.

Kash Patel: “The Fraud Is Mind-Boggling”

At Thursday’s press conference, FBI Director Kash Patel described the operation as one of the largest criminal takedowns in recent memory.

“We’re talking about tens of millions of dollars in fraud, theft, and robbery across a multiyear investigation.”

The FBI says the crime families used their existing control over New York’s underground poker circuit to integrate the new scams, taking a cut from the profits while using violence, extortion, and crypto laundering to keep the racket running. Of the 34 people arrested, 13 were confirmed members or associates of La Cosa Nostra.

The NBA’s Integrity Crisis

For the NBA, this could not have come at a worse time. The season just tipped off, and instead of highlights, fans are getting perp walks.

Billups has been suspended indefinitely. Rozier is out on bail after being charged with wire fraud and money laundering for allegedly leaving a 2023 game early to cash in on prop bets. Damon Jones is accused of feeding inside injury information about LeBron James, Anthony Davis, and Damian Lillard to gamblers.

The league issued a familiar statement, saying it takes “the integrity of our game with the utmost seriousness.” But right now, the word integrity feels like an empty slogan.

The Tip of the Iceberg

Tim Donaghy might be a disgraced figure, but he’s not wrong about one thing. The NBA’s gambling scandal is only the beginning. Between the Mafia’s fingerprints, the high-tech poker cons, and the whispers of point-shaving in college basketball, this story is starting to look less like a scandal and more like the rebirth of something much older.

The FBI says they’ve cracked it. Tim Donaghy says they haven’t even started. Either way, it’s clear the house isn’t just losing anymore. The house has been playing dirty all along.

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