​The federal government has secured a major guilty plea in its case regarding an allegedly rigged poker game run by organized crime that ensnared dozens of defendants, including Hall of Fame point guard Chauncey Billups, who has maintained his innocence.Shane Hennen, a central figure in both cases that erupted last October, will plead guilty to one count of wire fraud conspiracy in the poker case, according to a letter filed by the government Tuesday. The letter notes that 11 other defendants in the case are also “expected” to plead guilty. In total, 19 of the 31 total defendants in the poker case have now either pleaded guilty or agreed to do so. He is also a defendant in the parallel case that alleges gamblers were profiting by betting on NBA games using inside information. Those two cases are playing out in New York.AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementHennen is also a key figure in a separate gambling scandal that exploded in January, where federal prosecutors in Philadelphia accused 26 individuals of being involved in a plot to fix NCAA Division I men’s basketball and Chinese Basketball Association games between September 2022 and February 2025. Hennen pleaded not guilty in that case back in February. His attorney in that case did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Tuesday.In the poker case, prosecutors allege that the defendants, including Hennen, ran an illegal poker scheme during which they lured players to games using celebrities like Billups. The government claims the defendants then used “advanced wireless technologies” including “rigged shuffling machines” to guarantee profits to New York’s “Italian crime families.”Veteran NBA guard Terry Rozier is a defendant in the other New York case, in which Hennen has not pleaded guilty. There, Rozier and former NBA player and coach Damon Jones are accused of providing inside information to gamblers who then profited by betting. Jones was named in both the poker and inside info cases; in April, he agreed to plead guilty to one count of wire fraud in each. Rozier, meanwhile, says he is innocent and has been trying to continue his basketball career while awaiting trial, but a recent ruling set him back on that front.The same federal probe that resulted in the arrests of Rozier and Jones also recently ensnared two other former NBA players, Malik Beasley and Ed Davis. Those two, among others, were charged last month in a separate case that does not name Hennen. Beasley pleaded not guilty on July 1, and on Tuesday, Davis did the same.AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementAlthough Hennen has only agreed to plead guilty in the poker case, his decision to do so likely means the charges against him in the betting case will be dropped, according to Mitchell Epner, a former federal prosecutor who is now a criminal defense attorney at Kudman Trachten Aloe Posner LLP.Standard operating procedure is that if someone is guilty pursuant to a plea agreement, the agreement wi