Name: Massive college basketball rigging accusations
Uploaded: 2026-01-16T17:59:51.480Z
Duration: 4 min
Description: A federal indictment alleges some college basketball players were bribed to play poorly in a point-shaving scheme. Citadel professor Sean Patrick Griffin joins CBS News with more details.

A federal indictment alleges some college basketball players were bribed to play poorly in a point-shaving scheme. Citadel professor Sean Patrick Griffin joins CBS News with more details.

Federal prosecutors have charged 26 people, including 15 basketball players, in connection with an alleged widespread game-rigging scheme in college basketball. The accused players are alleged to have been paid to deliberately play poorly, which attracted millions of dollars in bets on low-profile games over the past two seasons.

The NCAA has stated it was already aware of most details in the indictment and does not plan to ban teams from post-season play. The ongoing investigation, which also links some suspects to an NBA betting scandal, has raised concerns about the effectiveness of current sports betting regulations, especially regarding large wagers on low-level games.

Massive college basketball rigging accusations

We've got a follow-up to a story that we brought you yesterday. Federal prosecutors have charged 26 people, including 15 basketball players, in an alleged wide-ranging game-rigging scheme. The feds say players were paid to pay poorly — to play poorly, rather, attracting millions of dollars in bets. I want to bring in Sean P. Griffin. He's a criminal justice professor at The Citadel. Good to see you, Professor. So, can we talk about just how widespread the scheme was and what could potentially be the consequences? I mean, everybody's still excited about college basketball, but could we see teams, for example, removed out of the tournaments? Well, with regard to how widespread it was, I mean, the allegations are that you've got dozens of players fixing dozens of games over the last two seasons. So, in the scope of our history of scandals, that's remarkable. Your audience probably knows that there's currently an ongoing NBA betting scandal that is nowhere near as this vast. It doesn't involve this many games, nor this much money. Interestingly, two of the alleged, quote-unquote, fixers in the indictment are also alleged in the NBA scandal that's going on right now. So, it's a very, very large scandal, as you said earlier, millions of dollars. What's interesting is, unlike the NBA betting scandal that's going on right now, the investigation, the allegations here are that hundreds of thousands of dollars were wagered in many of these games. That's a stark contrast. And it's remarkable because they were betting on low-level, really nondescript games that typically don't get that amount of action. And they were also betting on halves. You can bet on outcomes and halves, which many people who follow gambling are surprised because typically sports books won't take that amount of money. So, people are questioning how those bets were placed in the first place. That's gonna be another interesting aspect of what I assume the FBI is going to do. With regard to whether teams can be banned from post-seasons and things like that, the NCAA came out and said they were already aware of almost all of the things that were mentioned in the indictment yesterday. And there was no sense at all that they were gonna use any sort of bans for post-season play. So, Professor, these scandals are keeping the FBI very busy. You mentioned the big NBA investigation. Now we have the NCAA. Are the regulations simply not tight enough for the sports betting? Great question. With regard to the NBA betting scandal that's going on, that was about prop bets, meaning people were betting on what players could do, how many rebounds, how many assists. That's incredibly hard to track and stop. In this case, they were actually fixing outcomes and games, typical point-shaving scandal where they were targeting players, paying them either to play poorly, pull themselves out of games so that their teams couldn't get to a certain point total at the end of a half or the end of a game. Prop bets is actually already being discussed with legislation and regulations on getting those minimized. So the NBA betting scandal that's going on right now, that might be able to be addressed. With regard to what happened here in this classic point-shaving scheme where you've got low-level teams, low-level games that people really aren't paying attention to, what's supposed to happen is that the sports books aren't supposed to take those bets. It was ridiculous what they were allowing to happen. And so there, I don't know what can be done. I don't know if there are regulations that can be enforced on that. I don't think that's gonna happen. And what's interesting is in the NBA betting scandal, the recent one, people said, my gosh, these are multimillionaire athletes. How are they willing to bet 5,000, 10,000? This particular case makes more sense to the regular viewer because it's low-level athletes who are thrilled to make 10,000 a game, $20,000 a game, simply to score less points per game. Unbelievable. I mean, and you put it in that context, Professor, where, yeah, if you're a famous millionaire, maybe you're not gonna risk it all, but I can see why some of the younger or perhaps less played players could get entrapped in this. Sean Griffin, thank you very much for your insight. Appreciate it.

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