A head coach involved in poker games rigged by mobsters?
A 10-year NBA veteran benching himself for the sake of lucrative prop bets?
An 11-year NBA veteran and former coach with ties to the league’s most glamorous franchise (the Los Angeles Lakers) and to one of its all-time great players (James) selling inside information to professional gamblers?
“The fraud is mind-boggling,” FBI Director Kash Patel said.
But it is not shocking. Not even close. Years ago, I interviewed members of the 1949-50 City College of New York basketball team that won the NCAA and NIT championships in the same season before their historic feat was forever marred by a point-shaving scandal. Players from schools around the city were shaving and dumping. Floyd Layne, the CCNY star, took a few thousand dollars from gamblers and hid most of it in a flower pot.
Norm Mager, the CCNY sixth man who had first introduced teammates to a fixer, told me it was a fairly easy call at the time. “We didn’t have to lose games,” he said, “just win by fewer points. It sounded good to me.”
All these decades later, these Faustian deals are still being made.