Gilbert Arenas arrested alongside Israeli crime figure over illegal gambling business allegations
Gambling has become a big part of the sports world, and there have been punishments that have come down when players end up getting involved. In this most recent situation, it had to do with former NBA player Gilbert Arenas, and he was arrested after allegedly being a part of an illegal gambling business, according to NBA insider Chris Haynes.
'Former NBA star Gilbert Arenas and suspected Israeli crime figure were arrested today on federal indictment alleging they operated illegal gambling business in which high-stakes poker games were played at Encino mansion Arenas owned,' Haynes wrote on X, formerly Twitter.
Arenas is charged with one count of conspiracy to operate an illegal gambling business, one count of operating an illegal gambling business, and one count of making false statements to federal investigators.
Five other people were charged in the indictment and arrested in connection with the illegal gambling business, and were charged with one count of conspiracy to operate an illegal gambling business and one count of operating an illegal gambling business.
As stated in the indictment, from September 2021 to July 2022, Arenas and the other defendants built an illegal gambling business. Arenas decided to rent out an Encino mansion he owned for the purpose of hosting high-stakes illegal poker games.
Arthur Kats, who lived in West Hollywood, would stage the mansion to host the games, find co-conspirators to host the games, and would collect rent from the co-conspirators on Arenas' behalf.
According to the indictment, the other defendants would manage illegal poker games at the Encino mansion and collect a rake, which was a fee the house charged from each pot either as a percentage or a fixed amount per hand.
If they're convicted, the defendants would face a statutory maximum sentence of five years in federal prison for each count.
Related: Marcus Morris Sr. breaks silence on fraud charges with NSFW rant
Related: Michael Beasley calls out Carmelo Anthony in NSFW rant
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
New York Post
14 hours ago
- New York Post
Hamas releases chilling video of ‘living skeleton' hostage Evyatar David : ‘Few days left to live'
The family of Hamas-held hostage Evyatar David – a 'living skeleton' – believe he has just 'a few days left to live' – as negotiations for the freeing of all remaining Israeli captives continue to stall In a new propaganda video released by the terror group, David, 24, is seen in a tunnel with a ceiling roughly as high as he is tall, crossing off dates on a calendar and digging what he says he fears is his own grave. 'I haven't eaten for a few days in a row,' David says in the footage. The video shows David digging inside a tunnel. Hamas / Hostages and Missing Families Forum David's family believe he just has a few days left to live. Hamas / Hostages and Missing Families Forum In the middle of the video, the person behind the camera hands him a can of beans. 'This can is for two days. This whole can is for two days so that I don't die,' David says. 'This is the grave I think I'm going to be buried in,' he goes on. 'Time is running out. You are the only ones who can end this,' David said in the propaganda video aimed at Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. before being interspliced with clips of starving Palestinian children. 'We are forced to witness our beloved son and brother, Evyatar David, deliberately and cynically starved in Hamas's tunnels in Gaza – a living skeleton, buried alive,' the David family said in a statement sent to the Hostages Families Forum Headquarters. 'The deliberate starvation of our son as part of a propaganda campaign is one of the most horrifying acts the world has seen.' This is the second hostage video released by the terror group this week. On Thursday, chilling footage showed Israeli hostage Rom Braslavski ghostly and frail as he cried during the six-minute video. Both were kidnapped during a music festival during the October 7 terror attack and are among the remaining 20 hostages believed to still be alive. 'They are on the absolute brink of death,' brother Ilay David said Saturday, speaking in English before a crowd of thousands at Hostages Square in Tel Aviv, as thousands of protesters gathered for their weekly demonstrations to call for the release of the hostages. David called on President Trump to bring about the hostages' release 'by any means necessary.' 'To remain silent now is to be complicit in their slow agonizing death,' he said. US special envoy Steve Witkoff, meanwhile, told Israeli hostages' families in a meeting in Tel Aviv Saturday, that he had no news of progress in talks with Hamas, according to Hebrew media. 'I hear your frustration. But the situation is complicated. There are many reasons [for this] that I cannot detail,' Witkoff said, also emphasizing to the families that President Trump's mission is to bring everyone home. 'We now need to bring all of them home. We are very close to ending the war,' he said, according to the statement. 'We have a plan to end the war and bring everyone home.' 'No piecemeal deals,' Witkoff said. 'That doesn't work. And we've tried everything.' a comprehensive Gaza ceasefire-hostage agreement and would no longer seek 'piecemeal deals,'and is opposed to expanding the fighting in Gaza. The effort was complicated, he said, but he believed it would ultimately succeed. The terror group later vowed not to disarm 'as long as the occupation exists' and until there is a fully sovereign Palestinian state. Israel could announce a plan to annex parts of the Gaza Strip to pressure Hamas to accept a cease-fire deal, according to a cabinet minister.
Engadget
16 hours ago
- Engadget
X has to prove it wasn't negligent when removing CSAM from its site
X isn't off the hook yet when it comes to a significant legal case about child sex abuse content on its platform. On Friday, a circuit judge from the US Court of Appeals ruled that X Corp. has to again face claims that it was negligent in taking down child sex abuse content and didn't have an effective reporting infrastructure for these offenses. This ruling from Judge Danielle Forrest is the latest step in a lawsuit filed in 2021 against Twitter, before it was rebranded to X. The suit lists two underage boys as the plaintiffs and alleges Twitter, now X, "slow-walked its response to reports about, and did not immediately remove from the platform, pornographic content that a trafficker had coerced plaintiffs into producing." A previous decision with a three-judge panel unanimously decided that X was legally immune thanks to Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which offers wide-reaching protections to online platforms from the content that's posted by its users. This latest decision from Judge Forrest agrees with parts of the previous ruling, but claims that X was negligent in this case and has to defend itself against the lawsuit's claims that the platform makes it "too difficult to report child pornography that is posted on Twitter." The case revolves around a 13-year-old and a 14-year-old boy who were tricked by online sex traffickers into sending sexually explicit photos, according to the lawsuit. The illegal content was then posted to Twitter, and the 13-year-old filed a report against it through Twitter's content reporting interface, as detailed in the suit. The boy's mother also filed a report, didn't receive anything but an automated response, and had to follow up before receiving a response that Twitter didn't find any policy violations and wouldn't take further action, according to the lawsuit. The suit claimed that Twitter eventually removed the post nine days after the initial report, suspended the poster's account and reported the content to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, which is required by federal law. The lawsuit could set a major precedent in how social media platforms operate, especially if it makes it to the Supreme Court, but X will first have to defend itself against these claims again in district court thanks to this latest decision.
Yahoo
20 hours ago
- Yahoo
Gilbert Arenas Fires Back At Kwame Brown For Celebrating His Arrest
Gilbert Arenas Fires Back At Kwame Brown For Celebrating His Arrest originally appeared on Fadeaway World. Gilbert Arenas was recently arrested by federal agents in a case about an illegal gambling business that he allegedly ran in his Encino mansion in LA. Following his arrest, Kwame Brown, his former teammate with the Wizards, who then became his rival, responded to the arrest on social media in celebration. Following Arenas' $50,000 bail from prison, he celebrated like his trial was over, despite the trial date being set for late September. Following that, a clip of him went viral on social media where he addressed Kwame Brown's comments directly. "Ay Kwame, what did you say?... That boy is on fire over there! That boy gets all of his views off another person," said Arenas hilariously as he sang The Police's Roxanne to tease Brown. "I'm happy to get your page back popping because I just heard you lost another one... You can't even get out of YouTube jail. I got out of real jail before you got out of YouTube jail, all you got to do is hit a button." Arenas was arrested alongside five other defendants, among whom one is a suspected high-ranking member of an Israeli transnational crime group, according to the Department of Justice. The complaint alleges that Arenas rented out his Encino mansion for illegal poker games and is being charged on mainly three counts: conspiracy to operate an illegal gambling business, operating an illegal gambling business, and making false statements to federal investigators. If found guilty on all three counts, Arenas could face 15 years in prison. That would mean he would lose his show "Gil's Arena" with Underdog. His close peer Nick Young was ready to step up in his absence and take over the show, just hours before Arenas was released on bail. Kwame Brown and Gilbert Arenas always had a strained relationship, despite being teammates. Brown celebrated his arrest because Arenas spoke about Brown's family and openly called him an alcoholic. Now, Arenas made sure to fire back at his rival, Brown, even when he is worried about his freedom. Kwame Brown even claimed that Arenas ruined Nick Young's NBA career as his veteran and has now ruined his second career as well, as an NBA media figure. But Young did not seem to be worried about it; he was more excited to take over while assuming his peer's guilt in the process. Arenas claims innocence and says he only rented out the house and has no involvement in what they do inside the mansion. Meanwhile, TMZ has a picture of one of the alleged poker tables from the mansion, which boldly states "Arenas Poker Club" in the middle. The trial date has been set for September 23 as Arenas faces his second major public encounter with the law that could see him going to story was originally reported by Fadeaway World on Aug 1, 2025, where it first appeared.
