How former ref Tim Donaghy conspired to fix NBA games

[Mike Honcho 4,034]

 

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ESPN

James "Jimmy" "Bah-Bah" "The Sheep" Battista was a stressed-out, overweight, Oxy-addicted 41-year-old, in the hole to some underground gamblers for sums he'd sort of lost track of, when he settled in to watch an NBA game for which he believed he'd just put in the fix. It was January 2007. A month or so back, not long before Christmas, he'd done something audacious: He'd sat down and cut a deal with an NBA referee. Now he feared the scheme had become too obvious.

"You wanna get paid?" Battista had said to the ref. "Then you gotta cover the f---ing spread." The bribe was only two dimes, $2,000 per game -- an outrageous bargain. If the pick won, the ref got his two dimes. If the pick missed, the ref owed nothing; Battista would eat the loss. A "free roll," as they call it. But this referee didn't lose much. His picks were winning at an 88 percent clip, totally unheard of in sports betting for any sustained period of time. They were now entering the sixth week of the scheme -- what you might call a sustained period of time.

 

Very long and in-depth piece alleging how Tim fixed games.   Very interesting read.

[dain11279 928]

Yeah I read that yesterday. Good story, was always curious how that all went down.

[edjr 5,564]

He said it was rampant. Naturally, it fell on deaf ears

[nzoner 936]

Proponents of legalization have long argued that regulation leads to transparency, which helps root out game-fixing schemes. But there is much evidence to suggest the opposite. As economist Wladimir Andreff of the University of Paris has written: "All economic analyses conclude that the more money there is inflowing to sport, the greater the sport corruption."