Spread betting is any of various types of wagering on the outcome of an event where the pay-off is based on the accuracy of the wager, rather than a simple "win or lose" outcome, such as fixed-odds betting or parimutuel betting.
In organized sports, match fixing is the act of playing or officiating a contest with the intention of achieving a predetermined result, violating the rules of the game and often the law. There are many reasons why match fixing might take place, including receiving bribes from bookmakers or sports bettors, and blackmail. Competitors may also intentionally perform poorly to gain a future advantage, such as a better draft pick or to face an easier opponent in a later round of competition. A player might also play poorly to rig a handicap system.
Sports betting is the activity of predicting sports results and placing a wager on the outcome.
Stevin L. "Hedake" Smith is an American former professional basketball player, who is also known for his involvement in the 1994 Arizona State point-shaving scandal.
The 2002 NBA playoffs were the postseason tournament of the National Basketball Association's 2001–02 season. This was the final postseason that held a best-of-5 first-round series; the 2003 NBA playoffs saw those series expand to a best-of-7 format. The tournament concluded with the Western Conference champion Los Angeles Lakers defeating the Eastern Conference champion New Jersey Nets 4 games to 0 in the 2002 NBA Finals. Shaquille O'Neal was named NBA Finals MVP for the third straight year.
Jacob Louis Molinas was an American professional basketball player, an associate of the Genovese crime family, and a key figure in one of the most wide-reaching point shaving scandals in college basketball.
Eugene "Squeaky" Melchiorre was an American basketball player. A point guard, he was drafted by the Baltimore Bullets and was the first overall pick in the 1951 NBA draft. Melchiorre never played an NBA game due to his lifetime ban from the league for point shaving when he was a college player.
The 1978–79 Boston College basketball point-shaving scandal involved a scheme in which members of the American Mafia recruited and bribed several Boston College Eagles men's basketball players to ensure the team would not win by the required margin or win by the required margin, allowing gamblers in the know to place wagers against that team and win.
Timothy Francis Donaghy is a disgraced former professional basketball referee who worked in the National Basketball Association (NBA) for 13 seasons from 1994 to 2007 until he was caught in a gambling scandal. During his career in the NBA, Donaghy officiated in 772 regular season games and 26 playoff games.
The CCNY point-shaving scandal of 1950–51 was a college basketball point-shaving gambling scandal that involved seven American schools in all, with four in the New York metropolitan area, two in the Midwest, and one in the South. However, most of the key players in the scandal were players of the 1949–50 CCNY Beavers men's basketball team.
The 2007 NBA betting scandal was a scandal involving the National Basketball Association (NBA) and accusations that an NBA referee used his knowledge of relationships between referees, coaches, players and owners to bet on professional basketball games. In July 2007, reports of an investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) were made public, which alleged that during the 2005–06 and 2006–07 NBA seasons, referee Tim Donaghy bet on games in which he officiated. Donaghy later admitted to betting on games he officiated in each of the 2003–04, 2004–05, 2005–06, and 2006–07 seasons.
Personal Foul: A First-Person Account of the Scandal That Rocked the NBA is an autobiography written by former National Basketball Association (NBA) referee Tim Donaghy and published by Florida-based VTi-Group, Inc. in December 2009. Donaghy, who had resigned from the league as a central figure in the 2007 NBA betting scandal, describes his involvement in and inner workings of the scandal, as well as his gambling addiction.
Sherman White was an American basketball player at Long Island University (LIU) who is best remembered for being indicted in a point shaving scandal that resulted in him being stripped of numerous honors and awards, having to serve an 8-month jail sentence, and being prohibited from ever playing in the National Basketball Association (NBA). As a college senior in 1950–51, White was the nation's leading scorer at 27.7 points per game and was only 77 total points shy of becoming the National Collegiate Athletic Association's (NCAA) all-time single season leading scorer when he was caught, thus forcing him to prematurely quit and never getting to finish his college basketball career.
During the 1960–61 NCAA University Division men's basketball season, a major gambling scandal involving a former NBA All-Star basketball player and many members of organized crime syndicates broke through which had ultimately been years in the making. The scandal involved 37 arrests of students from 22 different colleges, as well as at least nine players that received money from fixers or gamblers that were never convicted of crimes, eight go-betweens being prosecuted for their efforts in the scandal, and two players being shown to have received bribe offers without reporting them to proper authorities. Not only that, but close to fifty people who had associated ties with the scandal were reported to have been permanently banned from the NBA as well as a result of this case, including future Hall of Fame players Connie Hawkins and Roger Brown, thus making this case more infamous in terms of results and impact than the CCNY point-shaving scandal from a decade prior. However, it's slated that hundreds more players alongside 43 other college basketball games were controlled throughout the scandal by comparison.
Michael Lamar Porter Jr., also known as "MPJ", is an American professional basketball player for the Denver Nuggets of the National Basketball Association (NBA). He played college basketball for the Missouri Tigers. Porter was ranked as one of the top prospects in the class of 2017. He was selected 14th overall by the Nuggets in the 2018 NBA draft, winning his first NBA championship with them in 2023.
Jontay Porter is an American professional basketball center and power forward who last played for the Toronto Raptors of the National Basketball Association (NBA). He played college basketball for the Missouri Tigers. Porter was previously listed as a recruit under the Class of 2018 before reclassifying up a year to join his older brother, Michael Porter Jr., at Missouri.
Kevin Pendergast is a former American football and soccer player. He was the most valuable player for the Notre Dame soccer team before Coach Lou Holtz recruited him to play for the football team as a placekicker. In 1998, he pleaded guilty to conspiring with players from Northwestern University's basketball team to engage in point shaving in three games.
Scott Foster is an American professional basketball referee for the National Basketball Association (NBA). He began officiating games for the NBA in the 1994–95 season and wears number 48.
