2007 NBA betting scandal

[2] Donaghy has claimed that instead of using his position as an on-court referee to advance his bets, he exploited his insider knowledge to wager on NBA games, regardless of whether he was officiating them.

The story first broke when the New York Post reported that the FBI was investigating allegations that an NBA referee had bet on games.

[11] Reporters, especially those who worked crime beats and who had quality law enforcement and "street" sources, soon discounted the supposed involvement of the mob in the scandal, however.

[12][13][14] The day after the initial reports, NBA commissioner David Stern said that "no amount of effort, time or personnel is being spared to assist in this investigation, to bring to justice an individual who has betrayed the most sacred trust in professional sports, and to take the necessary steps to protect against this ever happening again.

[20] After the initial reports, Donaghy stayed at his home, before moving to a secure location to avoid media scrutiny.

[22] He told judges that he had used coded language to tip others about players' physical condition and player/referee relations, and he specifically admitted to passing information about two games during the 2006–07 season.

The Rockets led 2–0 in the series before losing in 7 games,[28] and then-Rockets head coach Jeff Van Gundy was fined $100,000 for stating that a referee was targeting Houston center Yao Ming.

[40][41][42] Chris Sheridan of ESPN said that "the general American public has been turning away since the end of the Bulls' dynasty, and this fiasco isn't going to help bring it back,"[40] and J.

He discovered that during the two seasons investigated by the NBA, the teams involved scored more points than expected by the Las Vegas sports books 57 percent of the time.

However, Bell suggested that there was no way anyone who wasn't in on the fix could have known that something was amiss about Donaghy's actions during a game; he said it would have been another year at the earliest before anyone could have caught on.

For instance, Lang said that a crooked NBA referee can fix the total score by calling enough fouls to get both teams in the bonus.

When a game is being fixed, Lang said, the officials should be the prime suspects because the players are making too much money to risk their future.

[45] As a result of the betting scandal, Stern revised the guidelines on the behavior of NBA referees during the Board of Governors' meeting in 2007.

Despite the labor agreement for referees, which restricted them from participating in almost all forms of gambling, it was revealed that about half of the NBA's officials had made bets in casinos, albeit not with sportsbooks.