As news broke last week about rigged poker games in several major US cities — reportedly involving NBA coach Chauncey Billups, former NBA star Damon Jones, and others — FBI Director Kash Patel described the scandal as “mind-boggling” in scale.
PokerOrg Player Advisory Board member and high-stakes regular Matt Berkey found himself in the spotlight, after a resurfaced clip showed him warning about games involving Billups back in 2023.
We spoke with Berkey to get his take on the past week — and why he believes the FBI needs to be more precise with its language.
Watch the full interview above — or read on for key highlights.
Matt Berkey’s prescient warning
In late August 2023, Berkey shared what he knew about the rigged games — having received an invitation to play in them — on his popular Only Friends podcast. The warning from Berkey was loud and clear: the games were "obviously, for sure, confirmed to be cheating."
“Two years ago, I said the games weren’t legit,” said Berkey. “And at that time, they’d already been running since 2019.”
As the story broke last week, Berkey noticed a slew of missed calls from reporters across a wide range of major news outlets.
“I didn't really understand why I’d received all these calls until I opened my social media. I saw that Chauncey Billups had been arrested. I immediately knew what it was about. It’s been a whirlwind from there.”
“When the story broke, it spoke to the magnitude at which our industry is so insulated," Berkey said. "However much you like Poker Twitter, NBA Twitter tops that a thousandfold.
“The way that video clip went viral is something we've never seen inside the four walls of poker. It was very eye-opening to me to see that reach lent itself to Matt Leinart sharing it. If you told me I'm going to have a Heisman winner retweeting a clip from Only Friends, I would say, ‘Well, that's simply not true.’”
‘The X-ray table thing is obviously nonsense’
Berkey took umbrage to the indictment referring to the tables used in the rigged games being equipped with some sort of X-ray tech to reveal the hands dealt during the games.
“The X-ray table thing really bothers me. It's especially bothersome to see poker outlets reporting this as though that is a thing. It's clearly a misrepresentation or a misunderstanding of how the technology works.
“This technology is very common; we've known about it for years. They're mistaking it for an infrared deck. What they did was hide cameras in the chip well, and the dealers were using an infrared marked deck.
“Infrared decks get mistaken for RFID decks. They're not the same thing. Infrared is just a different type of technology. It's effectively equivalent to a barcode that's on each individual card with cameras aimed at them.”
Berkey went on to explain that a player in on the scam at the table would use a key fob or a phone to read the cards as they were dealt.
"The technology scans the deck from top to bottom, like a coupon scanner at a grocery store. It registers the order of the deck from one through 52. That information is then passed to the cheater at the table.
"They know who's going to win the hand before any card is even dealt. But this setup isn't that sophisticated. It’s just what happens when you have complete control over the back of the house.”
"I feel like there’s a lot of things coming out of this report that aren’t factually accurate, which is unfortunate as it’s so mainstream. I think it’s important, especially at the federal level, for the FBI to get some of this language correct."
‘Our industry overreacts to being in the news for bad reasons’
"I don’t think we need to worry about spin. I think generally our industry overreacts to being in the news for bad reasons. Mainly because there isn't a counterbalance of being in the news for positive reasons.
"But who cares? This week opened my eyes — getting to speak to people on a national level, people who otherwise never think about poker. It’s just interesting to them. They don’t give a shit.
"If all poker boiled down to was Molly’s Game, Rounders and Casino Royale and you infused all of that with these wild, crazy, cheating stories, that’s interesting to people. No one’s getting turned away. The majority of people who are seeing poker for the first time have no interest in playing anyway, so it’s not like you’re losing customers.
"The idea that we need to spin everything positively — that poker is mental warfare, a sport, and welcoming to everyone — all of that is true. And it’s happening every day at scale in casinos where games are on the up and up.
"When you get to the professional level and you’re talking about trying to earn a living, trying to be a part of some tiny little insulated group that has the privilege of paying their bills by gambling, you’re going to have to deal with seedy behavior, period. There’s no getting around it. There’s no way you’d be able to make enough money if you removed all of that from the game.
"All we can do as a community is put our best foot forward, as far as the professionals who represent us in the public eye, as far as alerting one another when things aren’t on the up and up, and protecting each other. But you can’t save everyone."
Pat McAfee interview, rigged shufflers, and what the poker community can do moving forward
Other highlights from the special edition of The Interview with Matt Berkey include:
- Berkey guests on the Pat McAfee Show on ESPN
- Who’s invited to the high-stakes celebrity poker games
- Compromised Deckmate 2 shufflers in private games
- How to be vigilant and take precautions, and follow an ethical code we can all abide by in the games
- What more should we expect as the explosive scandal unfolds over the coming weeks
Watch more of Matt Berkey’s in-depth take on the rigged high-stakes poker private games in the full video above or catch it on Spotify
