Tim Donaghy Betting Scandal
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On July 20, 2007, a report of an investigation by the FBI into allegations of an NBA referee betting on games to control the point spread emerged by columnist Murray Weiss of the New York Post. It was later revealed that Tim Donaghy, who has a gambling problem, placed tens of thousands of dollars in bets on games during the 2005-06 NBA season and 2006-07 NBA season and had been approached by lower level mob associates to work on a gambling scheme. Mike Missanelli of the Stephen A. Smith Show suggested that Donaghy had gotten himself into debt and tried to make it up by betting on games.
The revelations have sent shock waves across the NBA. While the league devotes significant resources to monitoring officials' performance, it only found out about the affair when the FBI stumbled upon Donaghy in the midst of a broader organized crime investigation. NBA Commissioner David Stern said in a statement, "We would like to assure our fans that no amount of effort, time or personnel is being spared to assist in this investigation, to bring to justice an individual who has betrayed the most sacred trust in professional sports, and to take the necessary steps to protect against this ever happening again."
Donaghy is expected to self-surrender to federal law enforcement officials in New York City before July 28. While match-fixing scandals have occurred in international soccer leagues, Donaghy will the first sports official known to have been arrested or indicted for point-shaving or match-fixing in the history of the four major professional sports played in the United States.
Sports gambling expert R. J. Bell, president of sports betting information site Pregame.com, tracked every game Donaghy worked from 2003 to 2007. He discovered that during the two seasons investigated by the NBA, the teams involved scored more points than expected by the Las Vegas sports books 57 percent of the time. In the previous two seasons, this only happened 44 percent of the time. According to Bell, the odds of this happening are 1 in 1,000, and there was "a 99.9 percent chance that these results would not have happened without an outside factor." He also found 10 straight games in 2007 in which Donaghy worked the game and the point spread moved 1.5 points or more before the tip--an indication that big money had been wagered on the game. The big money won every time--another indication that "something (was) going on." However, Bell suggested that there was no way anyone who wasn't in on the fix could have known that something was amiss about Donaghy's actions during a game; he said it would have been another year at the earliest before anyone could have caught on.
In a press conference on July 24, Stern said that the NBA learned about the allegations surrounding Donaghy on June 20. He said that the league would have fired Donaghy immediately, but was advised not to do so. According to Stern, NBA referees are not only barred from betting on games, but can't provide information to anyone about their games or disclose their travel schedules outside their immediate families. He emphatically denied that the NBA knew about Donaghy's gambling and let him work anyway. He also called the Donaghy matter "an isolated case involving an NBA referee who engaged not only in a violation of our rules, but in criminal conduct" and "the most serious situation and worst situation that I have ever experienced" in his 40 years with the NBA.
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