How Gamblers Are Rigging College Basketball

**Ryan Knutson** (0:05)
In 2024, a man wanted to rig a college basketball game, so he could bet on it and make some money. So he sent a text message to a group chat. You got somebody at Robert Morris? Robert Morris has a small D1 college in Pennsylvania, and the sender was trying to find someone on the team who would agree to throw the game. Our colleague Jared Diamond covers sports and sports betting, and he followed the events that started with this text message. How did the person at the other end of that text respond?

**Jared Diamond** (0:39)
Very quickly, it became clear that somebody in this group did in fact have somebody at Robert Morris who might be willing to shave points or throw a college basketball game in exchange for money.

**Ryan Knutson** (0:53)
That person was Marquise Hastings, the leading scorer for Robert Morris that year. Hastings allegedly agreed to not only help, but also recruit two of his teammates to join in. What they needed to do was underperform, miss shots, make dumb fouls.

**Jared Diamond** (1:11)
Hastings from outside. Oh, what a hard backhast.

**Ryan Knutson** (1:15)
All to make sure that their team was down by at least two points at the end of the first half.

**Jared Diamond** (1:20)
A foul at the other end of the floor. In the meantime, the people who were responsible for these text messages were furiously betting as much money as they possibly could against Robert Morris, covering the spread in the first half of that game. Those gamblers got away with lots of money as a result of those bets, and not long after that, the gamblers met up with the player and said, hey, here's your bribe payout that we promised you in exchange for doing what you did.

**Ryan Knutson** (1:51)
So essentially, they were cheating to make money.

**Jared Diamond** (1:55)
Yeah, very simply, it is the simplest sort of most classic form of corruption in sports.

**Ryan Knutson** (2:06)
These gamblers were caught and charged in this alleged point-shaving scheme. And earlier this year, a judge unsealed a federal indictment against them, bringing the details of this scheme to light for the first time. Hastings, the player, has pleaded not guilty. But even though the alleged gambling ring was uncovered, Jared says the damage to sports and this year's March Madness tournament has already been done.

**Jared Diamond** (2:31)
You know, everyone's talking about what happened, and it's understandable. But even what didn't happen is a problem, right? You don't even need games to be on the take for there to be big problems with sports. You just need people to wonder if they are, right? And now it's, I find, I think a lot of fans probably feel this way, it's going to be a lot harder to watch, especially smaller college basketball, without having in the back of your mind, is this real? Is what I'm watching genuine?

**Ryan Knutson** (3:06)
Welcome to The Journal, our show about money, business and power. I'm Ryan Knutson. It's Wednesday, March 18th. Coming up on the show, inside a college sports betting ring.

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**Ryan Knutson** (4:35)
At the center of this gambling ring at Robert Morris were two men, Shane Hennan and Marvez Fairley.

**Jared Diamond** (4:42)
And essentially, these are a group of hustlers, for lack of a better word, people that are in the sports gambling space. In the case of guys like Shane Hennan and Marvez Fairley, there are people, they, as part of, for a living, essentially sell gambling picks, right? They run Instagram accounts and websites where they, they're touts, it's called being a tout. You sell good gambling picks to people willing to pay for your expertise.

**Ryan Knutson** (5:09)
Here's Fairley touting picks in a video on Instagram.

**SPEAKER_5** (5:12)
It's exclusive.

**Charlie Baker** (5:13)
Everything added up, all research, all the analysts, everything is on the same game. It's exclusive.