Two years before Chauncey Billups was named in an FBI indictment on Thursday, Oct. 23, a professional poker player said a rigged poker game was “built around” Billups, the head coach of the Portland Trail Blazers and NBA Hall of Famer.
Matt Berkey, the 43-year-old poker player, made his allegations in 2023 during an appearance on the “Only Friends’’ podcast.
Berkey, who according to The Hendon Mob website has $4.7 million in poker tournament winnings, said he thought the poker game involving Billups started in 2019 in Los Angeles before moving to Las Vegas.
Billups was one of more than 30 people arrested by the FBI in connection with a pair of alleged gambling rings on charges of conspiring to commit fraud, money laundering, illegal gambling and extortion.
Berkey said he decided not to play in the poker game because he knew people involved and thought it was rigged. But he said he talked to friends who played in the game and it was ‘for sure confirmed to be cheated.’’
They played Texas Hold‘em, according to Berkey, who said people who won did not understand the game but knew what cards were coming.
‘Only the pros were losing,’ Berkey said. “They got absolutely filleted.’
Berkey did not immediately respond to USA TODAY Sports requests for comment left by a phone number issued in Berkey’s name, text message, email and his X account.
Of the pros losing, Berkey said, “You don’t have to be good if you can know the deck start to finish. Of course they (the pros) look bad.’’
Berkey noted it’s hard to confront someone like Billups because those people ‘carry a lot of weight and hold a lot of power.’
(This story was updated to add a photo gallery.)