The first prison sentence has been dealt related to the wide-ranging NBA betting scandal that rocked the sport in the fall.
Timothy McCormack was sentenced by a New York federal judge Wednesday to two years in prison, per ESPN.
“I’ve struggled with a gambling addiction for more than half my life,” McCormack said at his sentencing.
McCormack was charged with defrauding sports betting platforms by using nonpublic information to place highly profitable wagers tied to the performance of NBA players allegedly in on the scheme.
“He has an addiction,” federal Judge LaShann DeArcy Hall said. “I don’t believe the conduct Mr. McCormack engaged in defines him.”
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McCormack took part in the scheme that allegedly involved former NBA players Terry Rozier, Chauncey Billups and Damon Jones.
Documents released by the FBI allege the conspirators used a card-shuffling machine that used concealed technology to read the cards in the deck and predict which player at the table had the best hand, and relayed that information via interstate wires to an off-site operator.
According to the documents, the operator allegedly communicated that information back to a lead conspirator at the poker table, who used signals to relay the information with other conspirators at the table.
The FBI documents also allege that the cheating players used other technology, including electronic chip trays that could secretly read cards placed on the table, card analyzers that could also detect which cards were on the table, and invisible markings placed on the cards that could only be seen with the help of specially-designed contact lenses or glasses.
U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York Joseph Nocella Jr. called it “one of the most brazen sports corruption schemes since online sports betting became widely legalized in the United States,” and detailed the type of technology that was used at a press conference in October.
“They used off-the-shelf shuffling machines that had been secretly altered in order to read the cards in the deck, predict which player at the table had the best poker hand, and relay that information to an off-site operator,” Nocella said.
“Defendants used other cheating technologies such as poker chip tray analyzers—which is a poker chip tray that secretly read cards using a hidden camera—special contact lenses or eyeglasses that could read pre-marked cards, and an X-ray table that could read cards face down on the table.”
Billups and Jones were allegedly used as celebrity figures to draw in competitors for the allegedly rigged poker games.
The DOJ said that in April 2019, Billups was one of five defendants who “organized and participated in rigged poker games” in Las Vegas “using a rigged shuffling machine,” with the victims losing at least $50,000. One of the defendants texted another co-conspirator that Billups should purposefully lose a hand to avoid cheating suspicions.
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