Was Donaghy the First Official to Fix Games?
The NBA has gone to great lengths to make the public believe Tim Donaghy was the first, and only, basketball official to be involved in fixing games. A number of sports bettors, including quite possibly the most well-known bettor around, offer evidence to the contrary.
In his 1986 book titled "Lem Banker's Book of Sports Betting," co-written by Banker and Frederick C. Klein, a longtime sports columnists for the Wall Street Journal, Banker briefly touches upon the subject of fixed games. Banker states that contrary to popular opinion, the professional bettors in Las Vegas don't know all about games being fixed, mentioning that he was on the wrong side of several games in the Tulane University scandal of 1985.
Banker mentions that unnatural money tends to draw suspicion to games, which helped foil one of the few fixing schemes he said he had first-hand knowledge of.
He states that one time legendary oddsmaker Bob Martin called him to tell him something strange was going on with one of his bettors. The bettor, who normally wagered $500 per game, was now betting $5,000 per game and winning. The two decided to track the players wagers and after three or four games it became clear than the common denominator was a referee.
"Now neither of us had any proof, but we made a few calls and, indirectly, brought our suspicion to the league's attention," Banker wrote. "Pretty soon, that official wasn't in the NBA anymore, even though nothing formal was filed against him."
Banker then goes on to say that in his opinion, a fixed game was just as likely to include an official, especially in college games, as somebody older would be more likely to have a better understanding of what was needed to be done.
Jonathan Gibbs on NBA Officials
Standford graduate student Jonathan Gibbs made some waves with his paper entitled "Point Shaving in the NBA: An Economic Analysis of the National Basketball Association's Point Spread Betting Market," in which he provides statistical evidence for the possibility of point shaving taking place in the NBA. To read more about Gibbs and his research, see Are NBA Basketball Games Fixed?
While Gibbs doesn't touch upon the possibility of officials being involved in point shaving in his study, he does mention the fact in his summary as something that should be looked at more closely.
"Additionally, a major point, untouched in this examination, is that point shaving is consistently attributed to players, while coaches and referees are no less principal characters in basketball games and could be equally culpable," Gibbs wrote. "Further research could study substitution patterns and infractions called to test if, instead, coaches or referees are willfully affecting the final margins of games."
A number of polls taken after Donaghy claimed that Game 6 of the 2002 Western Conference Finals between the Sacramento Kings and the Los Angeles Lakers was fixed to ensure a seventh game showed that upwards of 75-percent of the public believed the former official despite David Stern's strong denials. As this article shows, perhaps there is good reason for that after all.
