The NBA has landed in another gambling scandal, in the same week that its 2025-26 season launched to ample fanfare.

At a Thursday press conference in New York, FBI director Kash Patel announced that more than 30 arrests were made “ across a wide-sweeping criminal enterprise that envelopes both the NBA and La Cosa Nostra .”

Patel said the arrests targeted an “illegal gambling operation and sports rigging operation that spanned the course of years.”

The investigation has two prongs: the use of inside information to bet “unders” on player props in NBA games (“Operation Nothing But Bet”) and a nationwide scheme of rigged poker games (“Operation Royal Flush”).

Patel specifically named the Bonanno, Gambino, Lucchese, and Genovese families as being involved in the rigged poker games, whic

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