Hall of Fame player and Portland Trail Blazers coach Chauncey Billups and Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier are among dozens of people charged in connection with a gambling probe linked to the US’s NBA and organised crime.

The schemes – one that involved insider sports betting and another that rigged poker games nationwide – spanned years and involved tens of millions of dollars in illicit gains from wire fraud, money laundering, extortion and gambling, FBI director Kash Patel said on Thursday (US time).

Rozier was one of several National Basketball Association insiders who provided non-public information to their criminal partners.

Authorities allege the criminals then used fake bettors to place multiple bets based on the tips.

Portland Trail Blazers coach Chauncey Billups at a pre-season NBA game. Photo: AAP

“This is the insider trading saga for the NBA,” Patel said.

Officials said Billups was charged in a separate case with helping to rig poker games to defraud unknowing players who were lured to the games with the promise of playing against celebrities.

The defendants used sophisticated technology, including fraudulent card shufflers and X-ray tables.

Prosecutors say that scheme involved organised crime families in New York, who also used extortion and robbery to collect unpaid debts and laundered some of the proceeds through cryptocurrency and other means.

While the arrests stemmed from two separate indictments, Brooklyn US Attorney Joseph Nocella said some defendants were charged in both cases, including former Cleveland Cavaliers player and assistant coach Damon Jones.

Several players in the “Big Four” North American men’s leagues – the NBA, the National Football League, Major League Baseball and the National Hockey League – have been penalised for gambling in recent years, as sports betting has expanded after becoming legal in more US states.

Rozier, 31, is in his 11th NBA season and has averaged 13.9 points a game in his career.

He had been under scrutiny for a March 2023 game after online sports books flagged an unusual number of bets for him to make less than his projected stats on that day. He played only nine minutes, citing injury.

Prosecutors “appear to be taking the word of spectacularly incredible sources rather than relying on actual evidence of wrongdoing. Terry was cleared by the NBA and these prosecutors revived that non-case,” Rozier’s lawyer James Trusty said.

Billups, 49, is in his fifth year as Portland’s head coach. He played for seven teams during his NBA career and won a championship with the Detroit Pistons in 2004, when he was named most valuable player of the NBA Finals.