Cheating is the last thing you should have to worry about at a high stakes private poker game. Perhaps that’s naive, but the minute anyone suspects a game may be rigged, then there’s a chance that poker game withers and falls apart.
Recent news however suggests that cheating may be a real issue, particularly with some games run by the mob.
If you’ve followed the NBA this season, you’ve probably heard the name Chauncey Billups—not for his coaching the Portland Trail Blazers to a surprise playoff push, but for the bombshell federal indictments that dropped on October 23, 2025, tying him to a sprawling gambling conspiracy.
While the betting angle has rocked the NBA, with accusations of leaked injury reports and lineups for prop bets, the poker side is where things get truly cinematic, exposing how elite private games, often glamorized as playgrounds for celebrities and tycoons, are ripe for sophisticated scams.
At its core, the allegations paint Billups as a key player (pun intended) in luring high-rollers to illegal, invite-only poker nights in luxury spots like New York lofts and Las Vegas suites. These weren’t your casual home games; stakes ran into the hundreds of thousands per hand, drawing in Wall Street execs, tech moguls, and fellow athletes who trusted the “NBA family” vibe Billups brought. But according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Brooklyn, it was all a setup orchestrated by organized crime associates who used sophisticated methods of cheating.
The cheating methods? Straight out of a spy thriller. Indictments detail:
- X-ray vision tables: Custom poker tables embedded with hidden cameras and X-ray tech to scan players’ hole cards from below, feeding real-time intel to colluding “house players” (shills posing as amateurs).
- Rigged shufflers and marked decks: Automatic card machines programmed to deal favorable hands, plus decks with invisible ink readable only by accomplices’ special lenses.
- Collusion via signals and apps: Subtle hand gestures, coded texts, or encrypted apps to tip off partners about bets and folds, ensuring the house always won big—allegedly fleecing victims of over $10 million since 2022.
Many pros suspected these games were rigged, as losers were beating professional poker players. Most others, like high rollers who loved access to professional athletes and celebrities, had no idea.
These revelations show how low some of the mob operations have sunk. They will also likely have a big impact on private games in the future, with players being much more cognizant of how to avoid being cheated.
Be careful out there!
