A former pool prodigy and betting influencer who was a link between three criminal cases involving basketball and illegal gambling is expected to plead guilty to a federal charge, according to a court filing on Tuesday.
Federal prosecutors said Shane Hennen had helped the mafia rig high-stakes poker matches; placed bets using inside information about N.B.A. players; and recruited basketball players in the N.C.A.A. and in China to shave points in games he gambled on.
Mr. Hennen, 41, is one of a dozen defendants who will plead guilty to wire fraud conspiracy in the poker case, according to a letter filed by federal prosecutors in Brooklyn.
Mr. Hennen was the subject of a profile in The New York Times last month in which he defended his conduct. He pointed to the existence of insider trading in financial markets and other areas as evidence of an unfair and rigged system.
“Sugar Shane,” as he is known, mused that virtually every poker game he had been invited to had been rigged, in one form or another. “It’s the norm in the atmosphere of poker,” Mr. Hennen said. “It’s the wild, wild west.” But whatever Mr. Hennen thought about the ubiquity of cheating, prosecutors appeared to have evidence of his actions that would have been difficult to rebut at trial.
In interviews over the past several months, Mr. Hennen did not seem inclined to take a plea. At one point, he suggested he was too important to the cases for prosecutors to offer him a deal.
Mr. Hennen did not return a phone call on Tuesday. Todd Leventhal, a lawyer for Mr. Hennen, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. It was not clear what effect the planned plea would have on his other two criminal cases.
The poker games, prosecutors said, took place in New York City, Las Vegas and the Hamptons. They involved suspected members of organized crime families recruiting former professional athletes, including Chauncey Billups and Damon Jones, to serve as “face cards.” The face cards lent the games credence and attracted high rollers.
Mr. Billups was charged with money laundering conspiracy and wire fraud conspiracy; he has pleaded not guilty. Mr. Jones pleaded guilty to the same charges this spring and is awaiting sentencing.
Mr. Hennen’s role in the scheme, prosecutors said, was supplying a rigged shuffling machine — known as a DeckMate — that read cards and instantly predicted which player would be dealt the best hand. That information would be transferred to someone off site, known as the operator.
Then, the operator would alert a confederate at the table, who would communicate with teammates via hand signals. Photos of the rigged shuffling machine — and information it transmitted — were found on Mr. Hennen’s iCloud account, prosecutors said.
Mr. Hennen said that the games — sordid downtown affairs that featured cocaine and prostitutes — cheated no true victims, or “choir boys,” as he put it. He said he started playing in the games in 2021 but stopped because he had himself been bilked of around $40,000.
“The victims were trying to cheat the cheaters,” he said.
Federal prosecutors charged 31 people in the poker case. With Tuesday’s filing, 19 of them are either expected to plead guilty or have already done so. A trial in Brooklyn is set for early November.
The widespread legalization of gambling brought Mr. Hennen both profit and peril. After spending time in federal prison on drug charges, he started a business selling his betting insights in 2019. Mr. Hennen frequently wagered hundreds of thousands of dollars on games in the N.B.A., N.C.A.A., N.F.L. and more.
His involvement in the illegal sports betting cases burst into the open when he was arrested at the Las Vegas airport in January 2025 before boarding a plane to Panama. Claiming he was traveling to get his dental veneers replaced, he was released on bond, and then indicted in October, January and May in multiple jurisdictions.
Sports betting indictments have touched Major League Baseball, N.C.A.A. basketball and the Chinese Basketball Association. But none of those leagues have embraced gambling as enthusiastically as has the N.B.A., whose commissioner published an opinion piece in The Times in 2014 calling for the practice to be legalized and regulated. “I believe that sports betting should be brought out of the underground and into the sunlight,” the commissioner, Adam Silver, wrote. The league has argued that its own monitoring services have helped catch suspicious betting.
Three players — Terry Rozier, Jontay Porter and Malik Beasley — have been accused of manipulating their performances while competing in the N.B.A. in order to fix bets. Prosecutors say that Mr. Hennen, using inside information, bet hundreds of thousands of dollars on Mr. Rozier’s and Mr. Porter’s underperformance in different statistical areas.
Mr. Porter, whose brother Michael Porter Jr. plays for the Brooklyn Nets, pleaded guilty in July 2024. The N.B.A. has banned him for life. Mr. Rozier would like to continue his N.B.A. career, but has been a free agent since the Miami Heat released him in April.
Mr. Beasley has also not played since 2025, but was not indicted until June 29. Prosecutors said he had underperformed in games as a way to reduce gambling debts, including for money he owed to a former teammate, Ed Davis.
“It doesn’t matter what I do in this world,” Mr. Hennen told The Times earlier this year, about the possibility of going back to prison. “I have skills they can never take away from me.”
The post Gambling Figure Indicted in 3 Major Cases Is Expected to Plead Guilty appeared first on New York Times.
