Former NBA player and assistant coach Damon Jones is expected to become the first defendant to plead guilty in a sweeping federal gambling investigation that has ensnared more than 30 people, including alleged mafia figures, athletes, and a Hall of Famer, across two separate schemes involving insider sports betting tips and rigged high-stakes poker games.
A court order entered Thursday in Brooklyn federal court indicated Jones will change his plea in both cases. He had previously pleaded not guilty on Nov. 6. The plea hearing has been referred to Magistrate Judge Joseph A. Marutollo, and Jones is scheduled to appear on April 28, 2026, at 11 a.m. ET, CBS News reported.
Jones, a former Cleveland Cavaliers guard, faces charges of wire fraud conspiracy and money laundering conspiracy tied to both cases. In total, 34 people were charged across two federal indictments last year. Jones was among just three defendants charged in both.
The sports betting case centers on allegations that Jones shared, or tried to share, non-public injury information about NBA players with bettors looking to exploit the edge. Prosecutors say Jones sold or attempted to sell inside knowledge about LeBron James and Anthony Davis, his former teammate and longtime friend, to people placing wagers on games.
The indictment points to a specific text message Jones allegedly sent to a co-conspirator on Feb. 9, 2023:
"Get a big bet on Milwaukee tonight before the information is out! [Player 3] is out tonight."
That same night, James missed the Los Angeles Lakers' game against the Milwaukee Bucks due to ankle soreness. The indictment refers to the player in question as "a prominent NBA player," and the details, the date, the opponent, the absence, line up with James. He is not accused of any wrongdoing.
The timeline is damning in its simplicity. Jones allegedly had advance knowledge of a star player's absence. He texted someone to place a large bet on the opposing team before the public knew. The game happened. The player sat out. Federal prosecutors now say that sequence amounts to a crime.
When it comes to prominent figures facing the consequences of alleged misconduct, the pattern is familiar. A former Des Moines superintendent recently faced a guilty plea on federal charges, another reminder that public trust and legal accountability eventually intersect.
The second case against Jones involves an entirely separate scheme, one that reads like a scene from a crime film. Prosecutors allege wealthy victims were lured into high-stakes poker games that were rigged from the start. AP News reported the games were manipulated using altered shuffling machines, hidden cameras, special sunglasses, and even X-ray equipment.
Jones allegedly served as a "face card", a famous or notable person whose presence was used to entice targets into participating. The indictment names dozens of defendants, including NBA Hall of Famer Chauncey Billups, and ties the scheme to organized crime families.
Prosecutors say Jones knew exactly what he was doing. In one text cited by the New York Post, Jones allegedly responded to instructions about the rigged poker game by writing:
"y'all know I know what I'm doing!!"
That message, if authenticated at trial or accepted as part of a plea, undercuts any claim of ignorance. Jones wasn't an unwitting celebrity lending his name to a card game. Prosecutors say he was an active participant in a fraud designed to fleece people out of their money.
The broader sweep of this case, Breitbart noted more than 30 people were arrested in the gambling investigation, connects professional athletes directly to organized crime networks. The scale of the alleged operation, and the sophistication of the cheating devices described, suggests this was not a casual arrangement.
Jones is expected to be the first person to plead guilty in the broader sweep. That distinction matters. In federal cases involving dozens of defendants, the first plea often signals cooperation. Whether Jones has agreed to provide information about co-defendants remains unclear, CBS News said it reached out to his attorney for comment, and no response was reported.
The charges he faces, wire fraud conspiracy and money laundering conspiracy, carry serious potential prison time. The fact that he was charged in both indictments, and is now expected to plead guilty in both, suggests federal prosecutors built a case strong enough to convince Jones that fighting it was not a winning bet.
Guilty pleas in high-profile fraud cases have become a recurring theme in federal courts. A sixth member of the Mohamed family recently pleaded guilty in a Minnesota nutrition fraud case, and the Jones case follows the same basic arc: alleged schemes that exploited trust and access, followed by federal investigators unraveling the whole operation.
The legalization of sports betting across much of the country was sold as a way to bring gambling into the light, to regulate it, tax it, and push out the black market. Jones's case illustrates the other side of that equation. When billions of dollars ride on the outcomes of professional games, the value of non-public injury information skyrockets. Anyone with inside access to a locker room becomes a potential source of market-moving intelligence.
Jones spent years as both a player and a coach. He had the kind of access that bettors would pay handsomely for. Prosecutors allege he monetized that access. The question now is whether the NBA and other leagues have adequate safeguards to prevent the next Damon Jones, or whether the incentives created by legal sports betting have simply made the temptation too great.
LeBron James, for his part, is not accused of wrongdoing. But the fact that his injury status was allegedly used as a commodity, traded via text message to generate gambling profits, should concern every player in every league. Their bodies, their health decisions, their game-time availability have become financial instruments in a market they did not create and cannot control.
High-profile athletes facing legal consequences is nothing new. From Tiger Woods' DUI arrest to the current gambling sweep, the pattern holds: fame and access do not place anyone above the law.
Several details remain unresolved. The specific charges and statutory provisions underlying the two indictments have not been fully detailed in public reporting. Whether Jones's expected guilty plea includes a cooperation agreement, and whether that agreement might implicate other defendants, including Billups, is unknown.
The full scope of the alleged poker cheating operation, including how much money was taken from victims and how long the scheme ran, has not been publicly established. And the identity of every defendant across the 34 charged has not been fully reported.
What is clear is that federal prosecutors in Brooklyn assembled a case broad enough to sweep in alleged mob figures and NBA veterans alike, and that Damon Jones, once a professional athlete trusted with insider access to some of the biggest names in basketball, is now set to admit in open court that he abused that trust.
When the rules don't apply to the people closest to the game, the game itself stops being worth watching. Jones's guilty plea won't fix that. But at least it confirms that someone, somewhere, is keeping score.
