The federal calendar between June and September 2026 will bring trial-track activity in two interconnected gambling probes that together have generated indictments naming approximately sixty defendants across separate filings in two different judicial districts. The cases share an FBI investigative umbrella known internally as Operation Nothing But Net.
Public knowledge of the NBA-side investigation began on Oct. 23, 2025, when FBI Director Kash Patel disclosed 34 defendants charged in two indictments unsealed by federal prosecutors in the Eastern District of New York. The first indictment, focused on sports betting, named Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier, former player and assistant coach Damon Jones, and Rozier’s longtime associate De’Niro Laster on conspiracy charges that include wire fraud and money laundering. According to prosecutors, Rozier intentionally cut short his appearance in a March 23, 2023, Charlotte Hornets game against the New Orleans Pelicans, leaving after only 10 minutes with what was publicly described at the time as a foot injury. Laster, having been tipped off in advance, sold that information to a group of bettors who placed roughly $200,000 in proposition wagers on Rozier’s points, rebounds, and assists totals. The second EDNY indictment focused on rigged high-stakes poker games and named Portland Trail Blazers head coach Chauncey Billups along with Damon Jones, who is charged in both cases. Prosecutors described the two as celebrity recruits whose presence at the games gave legitimacy to operations connected to the Bonanno, Gambino, and Genovese organized crime families. The poker conspiracy is alleged to have produced victim losses of at least $7.15 million dating back to 2019.
The parallel NCAA case opened on Jan. 15, 2026, when U.S. Attorney David Metcalf announced charges against 26 defendants in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania in connection with a point-shaving conspiracy that targeted 39 players spread across 17 NCAA Division I men’s basketball programs between September 2022 and February 2025. The scheme originated in fixed Chinese Basketball Association games featuring former LSU and Chicago Bulls forward Antonio Blakeney and shifted into U.S. college play beginning in January 2025. Bribes paid to participating athletes fell within a range of $10,000 to $30,000 per fixed contest, sums Metcalf told reporters generally exceeded the players’ name, image, and likeness income at their respective programs. The schools whose games were either successfully manipulated or targeted by fixers include Western Michigan, La Salle, Tulane, Georgetown, SUNY Buffalo, Abilene Christian, Kent State, McNeese State, Ohio, Butler, Alabama State, Fordham, Nicholls State, DePaul, St. John’s, Kennesaw State, East Carolina, Duquesne, and St. Louis.
Court activity in the early months of 2026 produced the first guilty pleas in either case. Damon Jones entered guilty pleas in both Brooklyn indictments during back-to-back hearings on April 28, 2026, becoming the first defendant in either probe to admit wrongdoing. In court, Jones acknowledged he had drawn on insider knowledge tied to his prior playing career to feed information into the schemes. Rozier maintained a not guilty plea entered on Dec. 8, 2025, secured release on a $3 million bond against his Florida residence, and now faces additional charges related to bribery that prosecutors disclosed in late April 2026, according to reporting by The Athletic. U.S. District Judge LaShann DeArcy Hall, who is presiding in Brooklyn, set an April 27, 2026, date for argument on Rozier’s motion to dismiss, followed by a May 15, 2026, status conference. The case is targeted for trial beginning in September 2026 under U.S. District Judge Ramon Reyes. Billups, represented by attorney Chris Heywood, pleaded not guilty on Nov. 24, 2025. Arraignments for defendants in the Philadelphia NCAA case are expected to begin during June 2026.
A common investigative thread links the two probes to the federal case that produced former Toronto Raptors player Jontay Porter’s July 2024 guilty plea on wire fraud conspiracy. Porter received a lifetime NBA ban in April 2024 after league investigators concluded he had manipulated his playing minutes for the benefit of proposition bettors. Several of the alleged co-conspirators charged alongside Porter resurface by name in the October 2025 indictments. The Operation Nothing But Net designation, which the FBI uses internally, captures a federal investigation that began with Porter and has since produced charges against a current NBA head coach, an active NBA player, two former NBA players, and 20 men’s college basketball players competing at the Division I level. When the organized crime defendants named in the poker filing are added, the running defendant count across the two probes lands at roughly 60.
Following the October arrests, the NBA placed both Rozier and Billups on indefinite leave from their respective franchises. In Portland, Tiago Splitter stepped in as interim head coach. NCAA President Charlie Baker, the former governor of Massachusetts, responded to the January 2026 charges by issuing a statement that placed protecting competitive integrity at the top of the association’s priority list. Baker has also pushed publicly for a nationwide ban on prop bets involving college players, a stance that several state-level regulators have adopted partially. The implicated programs have launched their own internal reviews, and four indicted players who had transferred between schools were taken off their current rosters according to information released by the Department of Justice.
The calendar puts the NCAA arraignment phase and the NBA trial start within several months of each other across the back half of 2026. Although the cases sit in different districts under different prosecutors, the underlying alleged conduct lines up on the same structural pattern. Professional and collegiate leagues that built revenue from US sportsbooks partnerships now have players, coaches, and former players facing federal charges for monetizing the same kinds of information flows that gambling sites in the US rely on to set their odds. Whatever evidence is produced at trial will inform how leagues, regulatory bodies, and sportsbook operators design player-education programs, set ceilings on proposition bets, and structure integrity-monitoring frameworks for the years ahead.