Donaghy

[freewheeler]

Are any details known about what this guy was betting?

I love this story.

I feel in my gut that this is a very isolated individual case, not a sign that fixes are in all over the place. But who knows? Everything I always wanted to believe - but was never quite sure if I should believe - about how unlikely it is that major sports games are fixed has been shaken.

Is it realistic to believe that this is the only guy out there fixing games? Or is it more likely that others are out there doing it, too, but just haven't got caught...

[Central Limit]

They always say it's an isolated incident (police corruption, steroids, government corruption, Enron, Arthur Andersen).

It always turns out to be rampant (police corruption, steroids, government corruption, Enron, Arthur Andersen).

[Scientize]

We don't really know how deep it goes or who is involved. The real question is how is this going to affect sports betting from this point forward. What changes is this going to bring about in the NBA as well as other sports? How is it going to affect the lines and the betting public?

[kyleb]

[ QUOTE ]
They always say it's an isolated incident (police corruption, steroids, government corruption, Enron, Arthur Andersen).

It always turns out to be rampant (police corruption, steroids, government corruption, Enron, Arthur Andersen).

[/ QUOTE ]

This is one of the best posts I've read on 2+2 in awhile.

[Thremp]

[ QUOTE ]
We don't really know how deep it goes or who is involved. The real question is how is this going to affect sports betting from this point forward. What changes is this going to bring about in the NBA as well as other sports? How is it going to affect the lines and the betting public?

[/ QUOTE ]

Bet more unders.

[craig]

[ QUOTE ]
They always say it's an isolated incident (police corruption, steroids, government corruption, Enron, Arthur Andersen).

It always turns out to be rampant (police corruption, steroids, government corruption, Enron, Arthur Andersen).

[/ QUOTE ]

Awesome man!!! It has been a long day, but this made up for it.

craig

[B00T]

Alright lets reexamine this whole issue...

This scandal was found from my understanding from recorded conversations. What I am most surprised about is how this wasn't noticed in the sportsbook community. Surely, some refs call more fouls than others. There really can't be a quota or anything based on metagame considerations.

I am sure the ref plays some part in the totals line. According to posts in the sporting events section, games where the line moved 1.5 or more pts he was reffing from Jan-Mar covered 10 of 10 times. This quote may or not be correct in fact, and that it was sides that covered, not totals.

Did sharp bettors or books themselves even notice this? The intuition I have makes me think they would. Did they just keep it to themselves? Did it factor into their picks or risk tolerance?

Playoff games then were 2/7 in the same criteria. Did people catch on? Is this really all just variance?

There are hundreds of systems and cappers that plug these things in. I don't have the stats of how many games shifted 1.5 pts relative to games that Donaghy wasn't in.

Are there any posts or discussions anywhere with the correlation of NBA refs to games? I know on the RX there was a detailed breakdown of umpires and totals at the beginning of the 06 MLB season.

It just seems something like this could of been, or was in fact noticed. I also thought there would of been some discussion amongst sports bettors here as this is more related to betting than the NBA itself.

[freewheeler]

[ QUOTE ]
Bet more unders.

[/ QUOTE ]
?????? Do you have information that he was trying to keep games under? I do agree that a corrupt official would be far more likely to influence the total than the side for a variety of reasons, but I would really be interested in knowing what he and his cohorts were betting on in the games he worked. I hope those details do come out eventually.

[King Yao]

There are a few tough issues with catching Donaghy or any other ref who is trying to influence the game. Even after the fact that we know Donaghy may have been influencing games, the evidence is not clear cut. Here are some reasons why it is so difficult to tell:

- he may not have bet on all games he was involved in.
- even if he did bet, he may have tried to officiate fairly. it's possible (although I admit not probable) that he just thought he knew and didn't need to influence anything. I have been told by someone that I suspect knows what he's saying that Donaghy was also betting on other NBA games that he didn't work in. Probably he wasn't trying to fix those games (unless he was in cahoots with others), so the fact he bet on them just reeks of a degenerate gambler.
- there may not have been a specific rhythm to his bets. people seem to assume that he would always fix a game towards the over or towards the home team. Why couldn't he try to fix one game Over and another game Under? One game towards Home, the other towards the Road team? If he mixed it up, there's little to tell from his stats.
- there are so many subjective calls in the NBA, and IMO, the refs in the NBA are not very good in general, that it makes it tougher to separate a corrupt official from a normally bad official

You mentioned that he was caught only when the FBI heard reference to him on mob tapes. If it wasn't for that, we'd never know. And...that probably also means there were other officials and/or players involved (College or Pros) in fixes that we will never ever know about.

[Flopz]

Little short notice, but Jim Rome (sports talk show host on from 12-3EST) is interviewing some ex-mob enforcer right now and he says if someone thinks this was the first time mobsters/bookies have infiltrated pro sports, they're being naive.

Interesting stuff.