Cheating the Spread: Gamblers, Point Shavers, and Game Fixers in College Football and Basketball
Albert J. Figone
Abstract
Delving into the history of gambling and corruption in intercollegiate sports, this book recounts all of the major gambling scandals in college football and basketball. The book finds that game rigging has been pervasive and nationwide throughout most of the sports' history. Naming the players, coaches, gamblers, and go-betweens involved, the book discusses numerous college basketball and football games reported to have been fixed and describes the various methods used to gain unfair advantage, inside information, or undue profit. The book's survey of college football includes early years of g ... More
Delving into the history of gambling and corruption in intercollegiate sports, this book recounts all of the major gambling scandals in college football and basketball. The book finds that game rigging has been pervasive and nationwide throughout most of the sports' history. Naming the players, coaches, gamblers, and go-betweens involved, the book discusses numerous college basketball and football games reported to have been fixed and describes the various methods used to gain unfair advantage, inside information, or undue profit. The book's survey of college football includes early years of gambling on games between established schools such as Yale, Princeton, and Harvard; Notre Dame's All-American halfback and skilled gambler George Gipp; and the 1962 allegations of insider information between Alabama coach Paul “Bear” Bryant and former Georgia coach James Wallace “Wally” Butts; and many other recent incidents. Notable events in basketball include the 1951 scandal involving City College of New York and six other schools throughout the East Coast and the Midwest; the 1961 point-shaving incident that put a permanent end to the Dixie Classic tournament; the 1994–95 Northwestern scandal in which players bet against their own team; and other recent examples of compromised game play and gambling.
Keywords:
gambling,
corruption,
intercollegiate sports,
scandals,
college football,
college basketball
Bibliographic Information
Print publication date: 2012 |
Print ISBN-13: 9780252037283 |
Published to Illinois Scholarship Online: April 2017 |
DOI:10.5406/illinois/9780252037283.001.0001 |