When former NBA player Damon Jones, who has been accused of feeding inside information to sports gamblers, first filed for bankruptcy in 2013, he had to list his Yorkshire Terrier as an asset.
The unnamed pooch was valued, according to the court documents, at just $1.
A decade later, Jones was a few months away from being evicted from a luxury Houston apartment building when prosecutors allege he texted a co-conspirator and urged him to bet on the Milwaukee Bucks against the Los Angeles because a top Lakers player, believed to be LeBron James, was out with an injury.
Jones went from relative anonymity as a former NBA player and coach to the forefront of one of the biggest gambling scandals in modern sports when he was named by federal prosecutors last week in two separate indictments allegedly involving gambling and fixed, mob-linked poker games.
NBC News reviewed more than 150 pages of court documents from Jones, including financial forms, spanning more than a decade that show persistent financial problems for the ex-athlete. In addition to the eviction proceedings, Jones listed his 2016 NBA championship ring as collateral for a personal loan and was hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt.
“Operation Nothing But Bet” is one of two sprawling federal investigations into illegal gambling that were unveiled Oct. 23, the other being a probe of rigged high-stakes poker games allegedly backed by the Mafia called “Operation Royal Flush” which led to the arrests of several people, including Portland Trail Blazers head coach Chauncey Billups. Prosecutors said the evidence in the latter case includes “financial records, telephone records, cellphone records and texts, cellphone extractions and location information, the contents of Apple iCloud accounts, witness testimony, and surveillance photographs.”
Jones has yet to enter a plea, but is due in federal court for his arraignment in New York. Jones’ lawyer declined to comment.
Jones’ current address, according to available records, appears to be the Houston apartment that a property management company tried to evict him from in June 2023, claiming he owed around $5,600 in rent, records show.
The management company dismissed the case after Jones failed to appear in court. But in August 2023, the company filed another eviction notice against Jones, this time claiming he owed more than $11,000 in back rent.
Once again, Jones failed to appear in court and the judge issued a default judgment in favor of the company, granting it possession of the apartment and slapping Jones with a monetary judgment of $11,240, records show.
When the court tried to mail Jones a copy of the default judgment, the notice was returned due to an insufficient address.
The management company has not responded to NBC News’ request for comment.
Jones’ financial woes go back at least to 2013, when his initial bankruptcy case was dismissed. Two years later, Jones filed for bankruptcy again and this time, according to court records, he reported $500,000 to $1 million in liabilities and claimed to have assets in the range of $100,001 to $500,000.
Jones, those records showed, owed around $640,000 to creditors and $47,000 to the Bellagio Hotels and Casino for “breach of contract/confession of judgement.”
It’s not clear what happened with that bankruptcy case. Bellagio did not respond to an inquiry from NBC News.
But in 2019, another man who said Jones owed him money surfaced, court records show.
Scott Kerr filed a civil complaint against Jones seeking monetary relief of $100,000 or less. According to the filing, Jones borrowed $10,000 from Kerr. That, plus a $4,000 fee, was supposed to be paid by Aug. 28, 2017.
Jones failed to pay back the loan and the collateral Jones put up to secure the loan from Kerr was his 2016 NBA championship ring, according to the filing, which added that he also failed to provide the collateral.
Kerr wasn’t the only person Jones allegedly stiffed. Between October 2023 and November 2024, Jones was hit with complaints from three men saying he failed to repay them thousands of dollars in loans.
One of them, Antonio Hooper, said in a November 2024 filing that Jones had agreed in writing to pay him $20,000 in return for a $4,500 loan. His filing included screenshots of text exchanges with Jones, including one in which the former NBA player mentions “Bron” being unable to “get over that Sports Illustrated article he did.”
Hooper, in a telephone interview, said Jones never paid him back. He said the reason he was asking for $20,000 is that he lent Jones more money after the initial $4,500 loan. He also said he and Jones have mutual friends in the NBA.
“I don’t know what article Damon was talking about,” said Hooper, who said he runs a youth basketball program in Houston. “But I have a friend who was looking for a job in the NBA and Damon put him on the phone with LeBron for an interview. He didn’t get the job and LeBron didn’t like Damon trading on his name. He didn’t appreciate that.”
James did not immediately respond to a request for comment via the Lakers.
Jones was one of more than 30 people arrested in the operations. Also nabbed was Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier, who is accused of faking an injury to take himself out of a game in 2023 when he played for the Charlotte Hornets, giving a heads up to a friend who, in turn, “sold that tip” to gamblers betting on that Hornets versus New Orleans Pelicans game.
Like Jones, Rozier is charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering. And like Jones, Rozier too, has had money problems.
In 2023, the IRS filed a federal tax lien in Florida against Rozier for $8.2 million in unpaid taxes from 2021.
In August 2022, a construction company filed a lien against Rozier for over $270,000, according to a claim filed in Florida. A year later, Rozier paid off the lien except for $20,000, court documents showed.
Rozier has yet to enter a plea to the federal charges. Rozier’s attorney pushed back on allegations that his client owed millions to the government.
“The federal tax lien story is a nothing-burger. His total tax liability was about $8 million. Between the CPAs and the IRS, something happened with his electronic filing, so the IRS issued a lien on the entire amount. The actual tax deficiency ended up being $3,000, and that has been paid off. We expect the now-defunct lien to be removed in the near future,” Rozier’s attorney Jim Trusty said on Friday.
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