Sports Betting - Is it Fixed?

Grantland Rice said many wise things during his legendary sports writing career. The wisest: "It's not whether you win or lose, it's how you play the game."

That goes double for handicappers. Haralabos Voulgaris has won a considerable amount of money betting on NBA games. But the Tim Donaghy scandal has made him think twice about his profession. "I spent an unhealthy amount of time poring over old games Donaghy reffed and seeing how I was affected," Voulgaris told TrueHoop's Henry Abbott this past June.

"It was rather disturbing and it kind of turned me off to betting."

The disturbance is twofold. It has to do with the integrity of sports, but it also has to do with the integrity of sports gambling. Scandals like the Donaghy affair cast a pallor over both industries by compromising their integrity. When a game is fixed, it is no longer a sport - nor is it gambling. It's simply a crime.

In this case, Donaghy has pled guilty to two federal charges of conspiracy to engage in wire fraud and transmitting betting information through interstate commerce. Neither charge deals specifically with fixing games - Donaghy admitted only to selling "inside information" on two NBA games he officiated during the 2006-07 season. But prosecutors say Donaghy also bet on games he worked, and Voulgaris is among the many who are convinced those games were fixed.

This is only the latest in a long, sad history of betting scandals that litter the pages of sports history. The following four prominent cases involved proven manipulation of games and connections with criminal elements:

Gangsters conspire with members of the Chicago White Sox to throw the World Series. Eight members of the team are banned for life from Major League Baseball, including the famed "Shoeless" Joe Jackson.

Basketball players from four New York-area colleges are indicted in a point-shaving scandal. That year's NCAA champions, the Kentucky Wildcats, are suspended the following season for point shaving. In all, 20 players and 14 gamblers are convicted.

Five Boston College basketball players are found guilty of point shaving during the 1978-79 season. Nine games are fixed; members of the Lucchese crime family are involved in the scheme.

German soccer referee Robert Hoyzer admits to fixing several second-tier Bundesliga matches; he's linked to a Croatian gambling syndicate with ties to organized crime and sentenced to 29 months in prison. Other referees and players are implicated; two of the 13 matches under investigation are confirmed Fixed Games.

Other cases of suspected match-fixing are on the books but have yet to be proven. The most damaging scandal outside the Donaghy investigation involves professional tennis. Nikolay Davydenko remains under suspicion for a 2007 default loss in Poland to Martin Vassallo Arguello; Davydenko was the top seed for the tournament, while Vassallo was ranked No. 87. London-based bookmaker Betfair received a highly unusual amount of money on Arguello during the match and voided all bets.

So far, the investigation led by the ATP (and assisted by information from Betfair and other bookmakers) has found 45 suspicious matches, including eight at Wimbledon. Five Italian players have been fined and suspended thus far. Davydenko has not been charged and maintains both his innocence and that of his counterparts.