{"id":369836,"date":"2025-10-27T04:23:39","date_gmt":"2025-10-27T04:23:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/369836\/"},"modified":"2025-10-27T04:23:39","modified_gmt":"2025-10-27T04:23:39","slug":"thunder-lakers-game-part-of-federal-indictment-alleging-illegal-gambling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/369836\/","title":{"rendered":"Thunder-Lakers game part of federal indictment alleging illegal gambling"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"play\"<\/p>\n

FBI Director reveals Billups, Rozier arrested in gambling investigation<\/p>\n

FBI Director Kash Patel details investigation which has lead to the arrest of over 30 people in relation to an illegal gambling scheme.<\/p>\n

A Thunder-Lakers game<\/a> \u2014 and a bad $100,000 bet \u2014 is part of the NBA gambling investigation that resulted in federal conspiracy indictments in New York.<\/p>\n

The Los Angeles Lakers won the home game<\/a> against the Oklahoma City Thunder<\/a> 112-105 on Jan. 15, 2024.<\/p>\n

A grand jury alleged in one indictment that defendant Marves Fairley placed a $100,000 bet against the Lakers after getting inside information that “one of the Lakers’ best players” was injured.<\/p>\n

“Ultimately, Player 4 played in the January 15 Game in line with his season average in minutes and performed well, and the Lakers won the game,” the grand jury reported.<\/p>\n

More: Thunder injury report vs Pacers; Is Jalen Williams playing tonight in NBA Finals rematch?<\/a><\/p>\n

According to the indictment, Player 4 had been listed hours before the game as “probable.” Anthony Davis was the only Laker listed as probable for that game. He ended up scoring a game-high 27 points in 38 minutes.<\/p>\n

Providing the information was another defendant, Damon Jones, grand jurors alleged.<\/p>\n

Jones, a former NBA player<\/a>, had learned from a trainer that Player 4 was only going to play limited minutes because of the injury “and\/or his performance would likely be affected in the game,” according to the indictment.<\/p>\n

Jones, who was arrested Oct. 23, was allegedly paid $2,500, through an intermediary, for the information. Fairley asked after the game for a refund of the “fee” but Jones responded that his information had been credible, according to the indictment.<\/p>\n

Grand jurors alleged that the Thunder-Lakers game was one of multiple occasions during the 2023-24 NBA season that Jones and another defendant sold or attempted to sell non-public information to Fairley to make wagers.<\/p>\n

Jones, 49, played in 114 games in his 11 years in the NBA. He and the Lakers’ LeBron James<\/a> were teammates on the Cleveland Cavaliers. Jones was an assistant coach for the Cavaliers when they won the championship in 2016.<\/p>\n

He was identified in the indictment as an “unofficial coach” with the Lakers during the 2022-23 season. Grand jurors alleged he had access to non-public information by virtue of his relationship with James, the Lakers and other NBA personnel.<\/p>\n

Fairley, 33, was identified in the indictment as a resident of Mississippi who represented himself on Instagram as a successful sports better and sold sports betting picks through his Instagram profiles. He also is known as “Vez,” “Vezino” and “Vezino Locks.”<\/p>\n

More: Steve Nash says OKC Thunder MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander is ‘up there with Michael Jordan’<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FBI Director reveals Billups, Rozier arrested in gambling investigation FBI Director Kash Patel details investigation which has lead…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":369837,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3783],"tags":[714,718,273,299,514,7137,7,212,2719,3501,311,9971,10883,4477,274,715,712,517,10881,300,516,185,298,150,70,85,6,626,239,1136,67,1100,310,475,179,3966,3965,61,628,1412,66,215,285,83,312,73,272,303],"class_list":{"0":"post-369836","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-oklahoma-city-thunder","8":"tag-alcohol","9":"tag-alcohol-drugs-and-gambling","10":"tag-and","11":"tag-angeles","12":"tag-anthony","13":"tag-anthony-davis-basketball","14":"tag-basketball","15":"tag-betting","16":"tag-breaking","17":"tag-breaking-news-social","18":"tag-city","19":"tag-crime","20":"tag-crime-u0026-justice","21":"tag-davis","22":"tag-disclaimer","23":"tag-drugs","24":"tag-gambling","25":"tag-james","26":"tag-justice","27":"tag-lakers","28":"tag-lebron","29":"tag-lebron-james","30":"tag-los","31":"tag-los-angeles-lakers","32":"tag-national","33":"tag-national-sports","34":"tag-nba","35":"tag-negative","36":"tag-new","37":"tag-new-york","38":"tag-news","39":"tag-ny","40":"tag-oklahoma","41":"tag-oklahoma-city","42":"tag-oklahoma-city-thunder","43":"tag-oklahomacity","44":"tag-oklahomacitythunder","45":"tag-overall","46":"tag-overall-negative","47":"tag-social","48":"tag-sports","49":"tag-sports-betting","50":"tag-sports-betting-widget-and-disclaimer","51":"tag-sports-news","52":"tag-thunder","53":"tag-u0026","54":"tag-widget","55":"tag-york"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/369836","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=369836"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/369836\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/369837"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=369836"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=369836"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=369836"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}