NBA Stars Under Indictment as FBI Reveal Operation Royal Flush

A shocking scandal has emerged in poker this week, as the FBI announced a sting investigation named Operation Royal Flush which threatens to damage the reputations of sports heroes, a card-shuffling machine and potentially dozens of players who knew they were playing in an allegedly crooked game. With basketball stars such as Chauncey Billups, the Head Coach of the Portland Trail Blazers, and the former American combo guard Damon Jones indicted, the scandal runs deep and has attracted a lot of mainstream news.

What is Operation Royal Flush?

In what is a developing story, the FBI Announced this week that 31 defendants have been indicted on charges following an investigation into allegedly criminal fixing of poker games. NBA stars are among those accused of using self-shuffling machines, special ink and relayed information to read cards and steal money in private cash games in Las Vegas, Miami and New York.

It is the cheating scandal that threatens to mushroom out of control in poker. NBA stars have been linked with a potential criminal enterprise with links to the mafia, as a self-shuffling card machine was allegedly used to steal up to $7m from unsuspecting poker players.

According to the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York Joseph Nocella, the gang, who are said to have links to three different New York Mafia families, used basketball players among those with added information to make some decidedly dodgy moves, rinsing players out of millions of dollars at the poker felt.

Operation Royal Flush, the title of the sting operation, has seen the FBI indict a number of high-profile people such as Head Coach of the Portland Trail Blazers Chauncey Billups and NBA star Damon Jones. The underground poker games, or ‘private’ games, are alleged to have been skewed in favor of the criminals after they used a number of different methods to get their players in game such as Phillips and Jones, the information on what other players hands were.

How Did the Criminal Enterprise Work?

In the Mike Postle case, Postle was accused of using an accomplice in the live streaming booth to relay hand information to him during live hands, meaning he could then allegedly make the perfect play knowing what cards he faced. This sting, however, featured a number of different methods combined to make money from cheating honest players out of their bankrolls.

The three key methods used to extort money at the poker table were simple but devastatingly effective. Cards were either marked with special ink or a readable ‘coating’ applied to the cards, or the card-shuffling machine, named DeckMate2, was manipulated digitally to feed back information on the cards.

This digital information was then relayed to the ‘quarterbacks’ in the operation, players at the felt who were in on the scam.

There have been investigations into card shuffling machines for some time, with VICE magazine reporting on the apparent security frailties of DeckMate2 to viewers two years ago in this video.

While the ease with which VICE manipulated the DeckMate2 shuffler was scary enough, clearly, in the hands of genuine organized criminals, the ramifications were magnified exponentially. Manipulating automated card-shuffling machines to hack poker games by feeding information back to the purported criminals was utilized to huge effect, going against the principal of DeckMate2’s creation.

Did Matt Berkey Know About the Extent of the Scam?

So did any big-name poker professionals get hooked by the game? If they did, we don’t know their names – yet – but one player who avoided the trap has come out to speak of the circumstances surrounding the private game. In a revealing video on X from 2023, the Solve for Why founder Matt Berkey described the underground game that started in Los Angeles and came to Las Vegas, where Berkey was offered a seat.

In a 2023 podcast episode, poker player Matt Berkey told a story about how he heard people playing poker with Chauncey Billups

and knew he was scamming and stealing money from an illegal gambling ring pic.twitter.com/kGsbYZOH5B

— Ahmed/The Ears/IG: BigBizTheGod 🇸🇴 (@big_business_) October 23, 2025

The poker action may have been ‘built around’ Chauncey Billups’ attendance, but clearly the pro players were the ‘marks’ in the game.  Berkey told the show’s host in the clip that the game was ‘100%’ illegal and potentially corrupt.

“It was for sure confirmed to be cheating,” Berkey said. “People who didn’t understand the rules of No Limit Hold’em were jamming hundreds into the middle with a ‘guttie’.”

While Berkey stopped short of saying he knew that the game was dodgy, and the responsibilities that would come with such knowledge, it’s clear that he suspected as much. In truth, Berkey is one of the game’s good guys, and if he had known outright there was illegality involved, he’d doubtless have reported it. The Solve for Why founder admitted he felt ‘lucky’ to have passed up on the ‘opportunity’ to play in the game on The Pat McAfee Show.

The scale of the FBI investigation into this latest scandal has shocked poker, with Operation Royal Flush coming out of nowhere. The subsequent details, once they emerge, will surely lead to big changes and may yet have the positive influence of pushing people away from corruptible private cash games and towards legitimate casinos and festivals.