Twenty men have been charged in an alleged NCAA basketball point-shaving gambling operation.
Prosecutors say the scheme involved:
- At least 29 college basketball games
- More than 39 players
- 17 NCAA Division I programs
Schools included in the indictment: Nicholls State, Tulane, Northwestern State, St. Louis, La Salle, Fordham, DePaul, Robert Morris, Southern Miss, North Carolina A&T, Kennesaw State, Coppin State, New Orleans, Abilene Christian, Eastern Michigan, and Alabama State.
The government unsealed an indictment Thursday in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.
The cases come as a growing number of Americans view sports betting as a bad thing for society. The two primary reasons are the corruption of games and gambling addiction.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Philadelphia said it would hold a news conference on the case at 11 a.m. ET. Thursday.
Players allegedly bribed to compromise games
According to the indictment, 15 of the defendants played during the 2023–24 and/or 2024–25 seasons. Some reportedly played during the ongoing season as well.
Two players named in the indictment — Cedquavious Hunter and Dyquavian Short — were sanctioned by the NCAA in November for allegedly fixing games.
Alleged fixers linked to other pro-sports gambling cases
At least two defendants — Shane Hennen and Marves Fairley — were also charged in a separate federal indictment in the Eastern District of New York involving gambling schemes tied to the NBA, according to the indictment.
The feds named former NBA player Antonio Blakeney but didn’t charge him in this case. The indictment describes him as being “charged elsewhere.”
Scheme allegedly began overseas, then shifted to NCAA
Prosecutors allege the operation began around September 2022 and initially focused on fixing games in the Chinese Basketball Association.
The group later pivoted to college basketball, allegedly offering bribes of $10,000 to $30,000 to players in exchange for compromising games to benefit bettors.
Blakeney’s alleged under-performance
Blakeney, who played at LSU, allegedly agreed to take part in the scheme and then recruited other players from Jiangsu, according to court filings.
In a March 2023 game, Blakeney’s Dragons were 11.5-point underdogs against the Guangdong Southern Tigers. Authorities say Fairley and Hennen wagered $198,300 through BetRivers Sportsbook on Guangdong to cover the spread.
Blakeney, who averaged 32 points per game that season, scored just 11 in the matchup. Guangdong went on to win 127-96, easily covering the spread.
“Blakeney underperformed in and influenced the game as he and the fixers had agreed,” the indictment states.
‘Defrauded sportsbooks’
Federal prosecutors allege the defendants placed wagers on games they had already manipulated, deceiving sportsbooks and the public. Sportsbooks as victims is a controversial framing.
As the indictment states, the defendants allegedly “defrauded sportsbooks” as well as “individual sports bettors.” Consumers had no idea games were rigged.
NCAA issues statement on point-shaving indictments
From NCAA president Charlie Baker:
Protecting competition integrity is of the utmost importance for the NCAA. We are thankful for law enforcement agencies working to detect and combat integrity issues and match manipulation in college sports.
The pattern of college basketball game integrity conduct revealed by law enforcement today is not entirely new information to the NCAA. Through helpful collaboration and with industry regulators, we have finished or have open investigations into almost all of the teams in today’s indictment.
Our enforcement staff has opened sports betting integrity investigations into approximately 40 student-athletes from 20 schools over the past year. While some of the investigations are ongoing, 11 student-athletes from seven schools were recently found to have bet on their own performances, shared information with known bettors, and/or engaged in game manipulation to collect on bets they – or others – placed. This behavior resulted in a permanent loss of NCAA eligibility for all of them. Additionally, 13 student-athletes from eight schools (including some of those identified above) were found to have failed to cooperate in the sports betting integrity investigation by providing false or misleading information, failing to provide relevant documentation and/or refusing to be interviewed by the enforcement staff. None of them are competing today.
The Association has and will continue to aggressively pursue sports betting violations in college athletics using a layered integrity monitoring program that covers over 22,000 contests, but we still need the remaining states, regulators and gaming companies to eliminate threats to integrity – such as collegiate prop bets – to better protect athletes and leagues from integrity risks and predatory bettors. We also will continue to cooperate fully with law enforcement. We urge all student-athletes to make well-informed choices to avoid jeopardizing the game and their eligibility.
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