US charges 26 people with rigging college, Chinese basketball games
FILE PHOTO: Mar 18, 2024; Dayton, OH, USA; General view as the ball falls through the net during NCAA Tournament First Four Practice at UD Arena. Mandatory Credit: Rick Osentoski-USA TODAY Sports/File Photo
NEW YORK: Pennsylvania federal prosecutors on Thursday (Jan 15) announced charges against 26 people for allegedly rigging bets on college and Chinese professional basketball games, the latest case to accuse athletes of cheating at legalised sports betting that has exploded in popularity in the US.
A 70-page indictment names more than a dozen former National Collegiate Athletic Association basketball players, a former NBA player and two sports-betting influencers who were previously charged in a sweeping NBA bet-rigging investigation. The charges include bribery in sporting contests, wire fraud and conspiracy.
"We allege an extensive international criminal conspiracy of ... players, alumni and professional bettors who fixed games across the country and poisoned the American spirit of competition for monetary gain," said federal prosecutor David Metcalf.
"This was a massive scheme. It enveloped the world of college basketball," he told a press conference.
39 PLAYERS SAID TO BE INVOLVED
The indictment unveiled on Thursday says an illegal sports gambling network originated in China in or about September 2022.
Prosecutors allege that several of the defendants began recruiting and bribing Chinese Basketball Association players to intentionally underperform in games to ensure certain bets placed on their teams.
Former NBA Chicago Bulls player Antonio Blakeney - who is named but not charged in the latest indictment - is alleged to have been recruited by conspirators to influence the outcomes of games in the Chinese Basketball Association league, where he was playing for the Jiangsu Dragons.
A package containing nearly US$200,000 in cash was allegedly left in Blakeney's storage unit in Florida at the end of the CBA 2022-23 season.
The scheme widened to US college basketball during the 2023-2024 season, according to prosecutors, who said the defendants recruited players to accept bribes for helping to ensure their teams fell short of their projected margins of victory, or spreads.
Prosecutors said the scheme involved 39 players on more than 17 Division I college basketball teams, millions of dollars in wagers on fixed games and hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes.
Prosecutors said the proliferation of legalised sports betting allowed the fixers to avoid detection by spreading their wagers around widely.
Two of the defendants, sports-betting influencers Shane Hennen and Marves Fairley, were charged in October alongside Terry Rozier of the Miami Heat and former Cleveland Cavaliers guard Damon Jones with rigging bets on NBA games by placing wagers using insider information, including undisclosed player medical reports. All four men pleaded not guilty in that case.
Fairley's attorney Eric Siegle declined to comment on the new charges. Hennen's lawyer did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment.
The charges against Rozier and Jones were unveiled in Brooklyn federal court alongside a related case against more than a dozen defendants, including Portland Trail Blazers coach and NBA Hall of Famer Chauncey Billups, who is accused of conspiring to cheat at illicit poker games using high-tech equipment. Billups and his co-defendants pleaded not guilty.
Brooklyn federal prosecutors have also charged Cleveland Guardians pitchers Emmanuel Clase and Luis Ortiz with rigging bets on their pitches during MLB games. Both men pleaded not guilty in the case.
Sports wagering in most US states was illegal until 2018, but leagues have since rushed to get in on the multibillion-dollar bonanza of legalised betting.
The NBA last year said it is reviewing league policies to ensure players know gambling's "dire risks".
