Biggest Sports Betting Scandals

Everyone who has bet on sports or has thought about participating in this hobby has likely heard rumblings about upcoming fixed matches or specific players throwing past games. Naturally, virtually all of that is hearsay. Nevertheless, over the existence of organized national/international sports, instances have gotten documented where suspicions of contest-rigging for betting purposes have gotten proven true.

Of course, the lure of financial gain is sometimes too much for people involved in sports, and this human trait has (on occasion), undermined the integrity of athletic competitions. Below, we dive into what we think are the five most notorious sports betting scandals in history, exploring their impact on their respective sports. 

The Black Sox Scandal

We mentioned this incident in our article detailing five movies on sports betting that you should check out. So, we will retread some ground here. The Chicago White Sox are, without argument, an American institution. Founded in 1894, this professional baseball team originated as the Sioux City Cornhuskers in 1894, playing in the Western League. They then moved to Saint Paul, Minnesota, where they bore the name the St. Paul Saints. In 1900, they once again relocated. To Chicago, this time, the city where this franchise has remained.

The Sox won their first World Series in 1906, and thirteen years later, they participated in one of the most famous MLB World Series, renowned for all the wrong reasons. The Sox lost their 1919 match-up against the Cincinnati Reds, with rumors starting to swirl about them throwing the series a year later, rumblings that led to a grand jury investigation in the second half of 1920, which produced indictments of conspiracy to defraud eight Black Sox players and five gamblers.

It is crucial to note that MLB players, at that time, had no bargaining power, and anyone who refused a contract would get prohibited from playing for any other team. Baseball pros could only change clubs if their current one allowed such a switch. Hence, it should surprise no one that some players would be keen to throw games. The Black Sox ones that got indicted and banned for their participation in the fix were Joe (“Shoeless Joe”) Jackson, Oscar (“Happy”) Felsch, Arnold (“Chick”) Gandil, Charles (“Swede”) Risberg, Fred McMullin, Eddie Cicotte, Claude (“Lefty”) Williams, George (“Buck”) Weaver. Readers interested in this case should read – Eight Men Out: The Black Sox, a book by Eliot Asinof that details this scandal in detail, giving the best analysis of it.

The Pete Rose Scandal

Nicknamed Charlie Hustle, Peter Edward Rose Sr. is an ex-ball player who played in the MLB for twenty-three years, from 1963 to 1986, splitting his time in the league between the Cincinnati Reds, the Philadelphia Phillies, and the Montreal Expos. He was a seventeen-time All-Star and a three-time World Series champion. In 1991, Rose got a ban that made him permanently ineligible to enter the Baseball Hall of Falls because of accusations that he bet on the Reds while managing the team from 1984 to 1989. What is funny about this case is that the allegations against Rose emerged after betting slips got found in an Ohio restaurant that belonged to mister Charlie Hustle himself.

In 2004, Rose, after years of denial, finally admitted that he did wager on the Reds and baseball as an active player-manager. In 2015, ESPN released the results of their investigations on this scandal, complete with Rose’s bet records, attained via an FBI document seizure from one of his gambling associates.

Tim Donaghy NBA Betting Scandal

Timothy Francis Donaghy is a former National Basketball Association referee who called games in America’s top basketball sports league from 1994 to 2007 (thriteen seasons). He officiated twenty-six playoff contests and seven hundred and seventy-two regular season games. Before entering the NBA, Donaghy refed high school basketball and games in the Continental Basketball Association.

In July 2007, New York Post writer Murray Weiss ran a piece that went into an FBI investigation into NBA point spread control. The Federal Bureau investigation centered around Donaghy, who had wagered thousands of dollars on match-ups he refed from 2005 to 2007. A problem gambler, Donaghy had allegedly gotten himself into debt by gambling and tried to dig himself out of his financial pit by affecting game outcomes. The FBI even revealed a connection between Donaghy and several low-level mob associates. He got indicted on conspiracy to engage in wire fraud and pleaded guilty to these federal charges in a Brooklyn court.

Donaghy got sentenced to fifteen months in federal prison for receiving money for insider tips and betting on matches he refereed. Yet, he only served eleven months from his fifteen-month sentence.

South Africa Cricket Match Fixing Scandal

South Africa’s national cricket team participated in a match-fixing incident during their 2000 tour to India. The case got global notoriety after Delhi police revealed recordings of conversations between South Africa’s captain, Hansie Cronje, and a member of an Indian bookie. The recordings implicated Cronje and teammates Herschelle Gibbs, Nicky Boje, and Pieter Strydom for receiving money to rig match outcomes.

As the investigation run by the United Cricket Board of South Africa went on, Cronje detailed his bookie involvement, admitting to getting funds in exchange for sharing team info and trying to manipulate game results. He got a lifetime ban from the sport for his actions.

The German Football Referee Bribery Scandal

In 2006, news broke that circled the world about top Italian football clubs affecting which referees called their games, with their general directors and others imposing their influence to get more favorable refs to officiate their club’s contests. That scandal led to then Serie A champion Juventus and Fiorentina getting relegated into Serie B and for AC Milan to lose out on its CL spot. However, a year prior, a similar affair unfolded in Germany.

In 2005, the worst match-fixing embarrassment in German football occurred, as two German referees came clean about taking bribes from a Croatian betting syndicate to fix lower-league games in Germany so that the bribing party could profit from their scorelines. Without question, this was the biggest scandal to hit Germany since 1971, when clubs Kickers Offenbach and Arminia Bielefeld, fifty-three players, six officials, and two coaches got sanctions imposed on them for rigging game outcomes.

Robert Hoyzer, one of the case refs, got a twenty-nine-month sentence, while another, Dominik Marks, received an eighteen-month one. Croatians Ante, Milian, and Filip Sapina, all siblings, reportedly profited over $2 million wagering on the rigged matches, with Ante getting a thirty-five-month sentence and Filip and Milan receiving suspended ones.

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