Numerous players indicted for fixing basketball games in scandal
At least 20 people allegedly colluded with known gamblers to fix basketball games, according to a federal indictment filed Thursday.
The indictment filed in Philadelphia includes charges of “sport bribery” and wire fraud, as well as conspiring to rig men’s college and Chinese professional basketball games.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania announced the sweeping indictment covering players from 17 college teams from 2022 to 2025. The scheme also involved two gamblers — Shane Hennen and Marves Fairley — who were indicted in October for their alleged role in an NBA sports gambling scheme involving Miami Heat star Terry Rozier.
The best-known actor indicted on Thursday Antonio BlakeneyHe was Louisiana State’s leading scorer in 2016-2017 and a veteran of two seasons with the Chicago Bulls. Since last playing in the NBA in 2019, the shooting guard has played for professional teams in China, Israel and Bahrain.
According to the indictment, the plan began with attempts to fix matches in the Chinese Basketball Association for the 2022-23 season. Blakeney, who played for the Jiangsu Dragons and led the league in scoring with 32.1 points per game, was allegedly hired by Hennen and Fairley to cut points.
Hennen and Fairley were included in the indictment along with others who worked as AAU coaches or personal trainers, often recruiting players to shave points in the first half of games. Prop bets (bets on specific events or occurrences that do not depend on the final score in a game) were also placed on specific outcomes based on agreements made with players. The indictment alleges that players were paid up to $20,000.
“Protecting competitive integrity is of great importance to the NCAA. We are grateful to law enforcement agencies working to detect and combat integrity issues and match manipulation in college sports,” NCAA president Charlie Baker said in a statement Thursday. “The pattern of college basketball game integrity conduct uncovered by law enforcement today is not entirely new information to the NCAA. With helpful cooperation and industry regulators, we have completed or opened open investigations into nearly all of the teams implicated in today’s indictment.”
Colleges under investigation include DePaul, Saint Louis, La Salle, Eastern Michigan, Robert Morris, Fordham, Buffalo, Tulane, Northwestern (La.) State, Nicholls State, Southern Mississippi, North Carolina A&T, Kennesaw State, Coppin State, New Orleans, Abilene Christian and Alabama State.
The indictment estimated that the gamblers conspired with as many as 39 players from 17 Division I teams to fix the games.
“Our enforcement staff launched a sports betting integrity investigation last year into approximately 40 student-athletes from 20 schools,” Baker said. “While some investigations are ongoing, 11 student-athletes from seven schools were recently found to have placed bets on their own performance, shared information with known bookmakers, and/or engaged in gaming manipulation to collect money on bets placed by themselves or others. This behavior resulted in the permanent loss of NCAA eligibility for all of them.”
“Additionally, 13 student-athletes from eight schools were found to have failed to cooperate with the sports betting integrity investigation by providing false or misleading information, providing relevant documentation, and/or refusing to be interviewed by enforcement personnel. None are competing today.”
At least four of the players indicted are currently active: Kennesaw State’s Simeon Cottle, Delaware State’s Camian Shell, Eastern Michigan’s Carlos Hart and Texas Southern’s Oumar Koureissi. Cottle actually He collected 21 points Kennesaw State’s victory over Florida International on Wednesday night and the leading scorer in Conference USA.
Baker said the NCAA is trying to eliminate sports betting violations through a “layered integrity monitoring program” covering more than 20,000 games, but the organization acknowledged it can’t do it alone.
“We still need the remaining states, regulators and gaming companies to eliminate threats to integrity, such as college booster betting, to better protect athletes and leagues from integrity risks and predatory bettors,” he said. “We will also continue to fully cooperate with law enforcement. We urge all student-athletes to make well-informed choices to avoid jeopardizing the game and their eligibility.”
