Whatever is actually happening in the Toledo point shaving scandal is unclear with charges dropped (for now). It has renewed interest in point shaving and the college games. Some Las Vegas sports gambling experts are suspicious of the Toledo football team's performance in the '05 season. Lopsided betting to one side or the other of a line changes the point spread - and raises questions in the gambling community.As I wrote before, the suspicions were noticed by legal sportsbooks. They have important interests in stopping any point shaving. They take the financial hit if the money gets too lopsided.
During that season, the lines moved by two points or more on seven games, says RJ Bell, president of Pregame.com. Each time, the bettors driving the changes won. "The odds of that happening randomly are 128-1 ... which tells me these guys knew something."
The "betting patterns" on Toledo during the 2005 season became so suspicious that Nevada's State Gaming Control Board investigated two games, chief enforcement officer Jerry Markling says. After concluding there were no violations by state casinos, the board closed its investigation in December 2005.
College sports are logically the only reliable target for any sports fix. The money made in professional sports by the athletes (who are in a position to impact the game) is just too huge to be worth the risk of being paid to shave points or throw a game. College "amateurs," though, are more likely to have a price since they don't get paid, or can be put in a compromising situation with greater ease. (Even if collegiate sports paid some stipend, the odds are it wouldn't be enough.)
This is what inevitably leads to the argument of "banning" gambling on college sports. The dupe to suggest that in this article is Justin Wolfers, assistant professor of business and public policy at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School. The idea is stupid, because it would only ban legal gambling on college sports in the country. Forgetting that most of the sports gambling in the US is illegal bookmaking. It also wouldn't shut down all the off-shore or out of the country sports books. The gambler who is (allegedly) involved in the Toledo point shaving scandal was placing the bets in Canada.
Point shaving is going to rear its ugly head in college athletics periodically, simply because there are always people who will try to cheat a system. And there are always those who have a price.
Previously at Fanhouse:
This is Why Legal Gambling Helps
Point Shaving at Toledo
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
5-12-2007 @ 10:25AM
Patrick Feeley said...
Although I definitely agree with some of the issues that concern point shaving at the collegiate level, I am not so quick to conclude that these types of shananigans only take place in college sports. The NBA, NFL, MLB, and NHL all have people that comparitively speaking, make far less money than those in the spot light. So while I'm not suggsting that Lebron James is intentionally missing foul shots at the end of the game, I do want to remind you all of the guys that spend thier enitire lives chasing players like Lebron and Kobe up and down the court. That's right, the officials, the refs, the umps, the zibras, whatever you call them, they are the poeple that can most easliy be influenced to call a foul everytime a player goes to the hoop. Or to through a flag for passs interfernece everytime a player streaks down the sideline and toward the endzone. And don't even let me begin to get into the strike zone that changes approximately 3 inches up down left and right from night to night depending upon which ump is behind the plate. Being addvid sports fans, you all know just as well as I do, that far too often, the outcome of a game is decided by the officials, the refs, the umps, and the zebras. Maybe now we have some insight as to why. The business of sports gambling is a billion dollar industry, that yeilds alot of power and control. The only question I have is how far does that power extend and who is under thier control.
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5-23-2007 @ 8:25PM
Peter said...
I believe the way they do it is that the coach is given a number to play to for each quarter of an nba basketball game and He calls plays accordingly to either slow the game down scoring wise or to speed it up, if players say anything to Him they loose there jobs and they make too much monet so they just aggree to do what the coach says. How can a tean score 33 pts in the 1st quarter and then 6 in the 2nd quarter. Play calling. the coaches get rewarded by getting as close as they can to the number.
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