Former Cleveland Cavaliers player and now NBA gambling suspect Damon Jones would strut around Vegas boasting about his friendship with LeBron James to try to land favors, a witness said Friday.
Michael Osborne, a professional gambler and sports bettor, told The Post he would often see the Cuban cigar-chomping Jones, 49, hanging around the ARIA Resort & Casino in Las Vegas to the point where he thought Jones lived there.
“He was a bad, degenerate gambler,” Osborne claimed of the ex-player — who is accused of peddling details of James’ injury status involving an upcoming LA Lakers game in 2023 to score a $2,500 payout from a bettor, according to law-enforcement sources and court documents.
Osborne said that while Jones would make his rounds in Vegas, sometimes dropping tens of thousands of dollars at dice tables with pals, he would flaunt his NBA credentials –including his buddy-buddy relationship with the superstar James, who has not been accused in the gambling scandal.
“He would say he’s best friend’s with LeBron James — basically, he was using that as a business card for people to gain some trust in opening up some doors for him,” Osborne said of Jones.
Jones would stroll around the Vegas casinos smoking $200 premium Cuban cigars and wearing designer clothes and at times loungewear as if it was like “he was living at the ARIA,” according to Osborne.
Osborne, who has been going to Las Vegas for the past 15 years, said he himself would smoke cigars inside the ARIA’s “High Limit” room, a special lounge for high-stakes games, where he would see Jones often eyeing players that were running a hot hand.
“[Jones] would keep an eyeball on the landscape on who’s betting there,” he said, claiming the player often asked lucky gamblers for loans in order to gamble with them.
In addition to Jones’ alleged illegal tip-off about James’ injury, he also was involved in a widespread multimillion-dollar scheme that lured deep-pocketed NBA and other figures to fixed poker games overseen by four of New York City’s infamous Mafia families, prosecutors said.
Osborne suggested that some victims of the rigged poker games may have been hand-picked from the room inside the ARIA.
Jones, who was indicted Thursday by federal prosecutors along with a slew of others, allegedly received $2,500 for insider information that backfired during a 2024 Lakers game involving James, info he claimed to learn from a Lakers trainer.
He then told co-defendant Eric “Spook” Earnest, who shared the tip with Marves Fairley, according to the indictment.
Fairley then allegedly tossed down a $100,000 bet against the Lakers — only to lose it all when James ended up playing in the Lakers 112-105 win against the Thunder.
When Fairley came calling for his $2,500 back, Jones said that he had been passing along “credible non-public information,” the feds said.
Osborne, who offers sports gambling tips on his “bigbetmike” Instagram account, said he was unaware of the illicit poker games.
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“Stuff like that was never talked about at all,” he said.
Jones is among three individuals who played in the NBA charged in the gambling ring. The other two are Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier and Portland Trail Blazers head coach Chauncy Billups.
Both Billups and Jones are accused of using their basketball stardom to lure people into playing poker games that were rigged by the Mafia
The trio have pleaded not guilty at their arraignments.
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