Aaron Katersky, ESPN

ABrooklyn man was charged Tuesday in connection with an alleged illegal sports betting scheme involving Jontay Porter, the former Toronto Raptors player who was banned from the NBA after he bet on his own team to lose.

After allegedly amassing large gambling debts to co-conspirators in the alleged scheme, Porter, called “Player 1” in the court complaint, was encouraged to clear those debts by withdrawing from certain games prematurely to make sure bets on his performance were successful.

According to federal prosecutors in Brooklyn, Long Phi “Bruce” Pham, knowing that Porter planned to withdraw from the game, placed bets on Porter’s performance for the Raptors’ matchup against the LA Clippers on Jan. 26.

Shortly before that game, prosecutors said Porter told Pham he would exit early in the contest, claiming he was injured. As a result, a co-conspirator won $40,250.

Pham, 38, was arrested at JFK Airport in New York on Monday as he tried to board a flight to Australia on a one-way ticket, according to the criminal complaint. He was ordered detained Tuesday pending trial on a charge of conspiring to defraud a sports betting company.

Three unnamed co-conspirators charged in the scheme remain at large. It’s unclear whether Porter, 24, is under investigation in the criminal case.

Pham and his co-conspirators netted over $1 million in profits overall, according to the United States Attorney’s Office.

Rest is here…

Erich Richter, New York Post

“The fix is in” is oftentimes a joke, but recently it seems like that’s been more of a reality than humor.

Gambling scandals have always been an ugly black eye in sports, dating back to the early 20th century with the infamous Black Sox.

And it likely dates back longer than that.

Fixing sports for profit is something that has likely been happening for centuries, including when the Gladiators battled in the Colosseum.

You’ll notice that a lot of this happened in the underground market, with legal online sports betting making it substantially easier to catch those looking to put down big money on a game they control.

But like anything, the widespread availability has also made it easier to find out who is attempting to make a quick buck while compromising the league.

Here’s a look back at major sports betting controversies.

Major sports betting controversies

Arnold Rothstein fixes the 1919 World Series with help from eight White Sox players

We’ll start with organized crime figure Arnold Rothstein and the 1919 White Sox, who threw the World Series.

Rothstein led a gambling syndicate in the early 1900s. He was able to compromise players by promising to pay the White Sox players once they had successfully lost the World Series.

Court records show that each player was given between $70,000-$100,000 to lose the World Series to the Reds that year.

Rothstein was never officially convicted of the crime.

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Fox Sports

The former interpreter for Los Angeles Dodgers star Shohei Ohtani pleaded guilty to bank and tax fraud on Tuesday and admitted to stealing nearly $17 million from the Japanese baseball player to pay off sports betting debts.

Ippei Mizuhara’s crimes stunned the baseball world, shattering his image as Ohtani’s shadow at ballparks around the U.S. He entered his guilty plea Tuesday in federal court in Santa Ana, California.

The ex-interpreter had exploited his personal and professional relationship with Ohtani to plunder millions from the two-way player’s account for years, at times impersonating Ohtani to bankers. Mizuhara signed a plea agreement that detailed the allegations on May 5, and prosecutors announced it several days later.

Mizuhara’s attorney declined to comment outside the courthouse. Mizuhara spoke briefly in court acknowledging his guilt. “I worked for victim A and had access to his bank account and had fallen into major gambling debt,” he told the court. “I went ahead and wired money … with his bank account.”

Federal prosecutors declined to comment outside the courthouse.

Tuesday’s court hearing lasted approximately 45 minutes.

Mizuhara’s winning bets totaled over $142 million, which he deposited in his own bank account and not Ohtani’s. But his losing bets were around $183 million, a net loss of nearly $41 million. He did not wager on baseball.

Mizuhara pleaded guilty to one count of bank fraud and one count of subscribing to a false tax return. The bank fraud charge carries a maximum of 30 years in federal prison, and the false tax return charge carries a sentence of up to three years in federal prison. The sentencing hearing is scheduled for Oct. 25.

He also is required to pay Ohtani restitution that could total nearly $17 million, as well as more than $1 million to the IRS. Those amounts, however, could change prior to sentencing.

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Jeff Passan, ESPN

San Diego Padres infielder Tucupita Marcano is facing a potential lifetime ban for betting on baseball after Major League Baseball received information that he wagered on games involving the Pittsburgh Pirates when he was with the team last season, sources confirmed to ESPN on Monday.

Marcano, 24, has yet to be formally penalized, but MLB Rule 21 explicitly states that a player who bets on games involving his own team is subject to a lifetime ban. Marcano tore an ACL last year and was on the injured list when he allegedly placed the bets, which were flagged by a sportsbook and reported to the league, according to sources.

The potential ban of Marcano comes in the wake of the NBA handing down a ban to Toronto Raptors forward Jontay Porter for disclosing confidential information to bettors, limiting his participation in at least one game and betting on NBA games while playing in the G League.

Four other minor league players are facing potential discipline for betting as well, sources told ESPN. Even if a player in the minor leagues is on a team’s 40-man roster, he would face a one-year suspension for betting on major league games, according to Rule 21.

The Wall Street Journal first reported the looming discipline for all five players.

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Jared Diamond and Lindsey Adler, Wall Street Journal

Major League Baseball has banned San Diego Padres infielder Tucupita Marcano for life—and suspended four other players for one year—for violating the sport’s gambling policy. 

Marcano is believed to be the first active player to be kicked out of baseball for betting since Jimmy O’Connell of the New York Giants in 1924. He is also the most prominent person to be permanently banned for wagering on baseball since all-time hits leader Pete Rose accepted his lifetime banishment while he was a manager in 1989.

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Doug Greenberg, ESPN

GIVEN THE IMMEDIATE cultural acceptance, rapid adoption in media and near ubiquity of advertisements, it’s hard to believe that American legal sports betting is only six years old.

Almost as soon as the floodgates opened, the United States proved to be an ideal breeding ground for the industry. Between major professional sports leagues and college sports programs, it makes sense that a large chunk of a highly competitive nation’s over 330 million citizens would be intrigued by wagering on sports.

Perhaps the excitement is a result of its unavailability for so long, but American sports betting owes much of its current climate to several hundred years of development across the pond.

“America managed to do 200 years of history in six years,” London-based betting industry veteran Matthew Trenhaile told ESPN.

In the United Kingdom, which hosts Saturday’s UEFA Champions League Final between Borussia Dortmund and Real Madrid at London’s Wembley Stadium, sports betting was never truly illegal and has, therefore, always been a part of the sporting culture.

As Europe gears up for its biggest sports betting event of the year — the continent’s equivalent of the Super Bowl — it’s easy to see what the United States’ sports betting industry can learn from Europe amidst its own growing pains.

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ESPN

West Ham midfielder Lucas Paquetá has been charged by England’s Football Association (FA) with breaches of betting rules.

The FA charges state that Paquetá tried to “influence the progress, conduct, or any other aspect of, or occurrence in these matches by intentionally seeking to receive a card from the referee for the improper purpose of affecting the betting market in order for one or more persons to profit from betting.”

The FA statement said the breaches relate to three matches from the 2022-23 season, his first in the Premier League with the east London club, and the opening fixture of the 2023-24 campaign.

The games came against Leicester City on Nov. 12, 2022; Aston Villa on March 12, 2023; Leeds United on May 21, 2023; and AFC Bournemouth on Aug. 12, 2023.

Paquetá denied the charges in an Instagram post.

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Jason Quick (The Athletic) May 20, 2024

When he was a cocksure 25-year-old, on the fast track to officiating big-time college basketball, Scott Foster was summoned for a sit-down with his dad.

They met at a bar, and his father, Dickie, brought along a family friend with experience in high-level sports. They were concerned about Foster, who was mulling a daring career move. It was 1992, and he had been offered a job in the Continental Basketball Association, then a training ground for the NBA, making $95 a game. But to do so, he would have to forgo his schedule — and career path — of officiating Division I games, which at the time were paying him $250 a game. His dad and friend couldn’t see the logic of accepting less money, less exposure and less stability.

 

His dad’s word carried a lot of weight, not just with Foster, but all around Maryland’s Montgomery County. Dickie Foster was a decorated assistant fire chief, an accomplished softball player and the pulse of the frequent parties at the Foster house. As people splashed in their pool, and his dad grilled meats, Foster says he can remember being cornered by firefighters passionately telling him stories about his dad’s heroics, his dad’s leadership and how much his dad meant to them.

“The only job cooler than a firefighter in my neighborhood growing up was Major League Baseball player,” Foster said. “So he was a big deal.”

But on this day at the bar, as his dad addressed Foster’s new job offer, Dickie Foster used words like “pipe dream” and “one-in-a-million” and “few-and-far between.” Foster remembers his dad’s final words on the matter: “Not everyone can be Michael Jordan.”

“But …” Foster remembers telling his dad, “what if I am the Michael Jordan of officiating?”

Rest is here.

For more on Scott Foster and Tim Donaghy see here.

For evidence-based analyses of Tim Donaghy’s claims, see here.

Of course, for a full examination of Foster, Donaghy, and the betting scandal, see Gaming the Game: The Story Behind the NBA Betting Scandal and the Gambler Who Made It Happen.

By Jason Quick  (The Athletic) May 20, 2024

The two have not spoken since 2007, Donaghy said, when Donaghy knew he was about to be arrested and called Foster to tell him he couldn’t play in a golf tournament due to the investigation into Donaghy’s betting ties.

Donaghy was later sentenced to 15 months in prison.

In 2008, a report from former federal prosecutor Lawrence Pedowitz and his law firm on NBA officiating revealed that Foster and Donaghy exchanged 170 phone calls during the timeframe of Donaghy’s involvement with his co-conspirators.

 

“That’s how we communicated in 2007,” Foster told The Athletic. “Anytime somebody wants to discredit me, or question my integrity, they draw this conclusion from this 134-phone-call article … and it’s like, ‘That’s the proof!’ There is no proof. Because it didn’t happen.”

“Today, when people hear anybody called someone 134 times, it’s like ‘Wow! That’s weird.’ Because it is weird. I didn’t have text messaging in 2007. I had a Motorola Razor, which if you wanted to text ‘Yes’ in a text message it was 23 keystrokes or something crazy like that.”

Rest is here.

For more details on Scott Foster and Tim Donaghy, see here.

For evidence-based analyses of Tim Donaghy’s claims, see here.

Of course, for an exhaustive illustration of Scott Foster’s involvement with Tim Donaghy, see Gaming the Game: The Story Behind the NBA Betting Scandal and the Gambler Who Made It Happen.

By Robert O’Neill on 05/20/2024

Throughout their careers, former NBA referee Tim Donaghy and current NBA referee Scott Foster developed a close enough bond that each man is the godfather of the other’s child.

However, the pair haven’t spoken since Donaghy was arrested in the summer of 2007 for his role in a gambling scandal that revealed he bet on NBA games that he was officiating.

 

In a new interview with The Athletic, Donaghy expressed “regrets” over his friendship with Foster ending how it did. He also expressed a desire to reconcile with his former friend.

“We were like brothers,” Donaghy said in an interview for the site’s profile on Foster released Monday.

 

A 2008 investigation revealed nearly 200 phone calls between the pair during Donaghy’s involvement with the gambling scandal, something Foster has written off as simply being a product of how cell phones worked at the time.

“That’s how we communicated in 2007,” Foster said. “Today, when people hear anybody called someone 134 times, it’s like, ‘Wow! That’s weird.’ Because it is weird, I didn’t have text messaging in 2007. I had a Motorola Razr, which, if you wanted to text ‘Yes’ in a text message, was 23 keystrokes or something crazy like that,” He continued.

 

Foster was cleared in the federal investigation in 2008 and has never faced discipline by the NBA for his friendship with Donaghy.

Donaghy knows it’s unlikely he can ever reconcile with Foster while the latter still works for the NBA, but notes, “I’m hoping at some point when Scott steps away, we can talk. And I can apologize to him. You never know; maybe that friendship can be pieced back together. I’m not sure.”

Via Awful Announcing.

Rest is here.

For more details on Scott Foster and Tim Donaghy, please see here.

For evidence-based analyses of Tim Donaghy’s claims, see here.

Of course, I exhaustively detail Donaghy’s actions, including those involving Scott Foster, in Gaming the Game: The Story Behind the NBA Betting Scandal and the Gambler Who Made It Happen.