We're about due for a major game-fixing scandal in college basketball.
This is more than a prediction, it's a likelihood based on the sport's own sordid law of averages. There have been seven major game-fixing scandals in the past 56 years, or one every eight years.
<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width=175 align=left><TBODY><TR><TD width=175>
</TD><TD width=15> </TD></TR><TR><TD width=175>Eleven years ago Dewey Williams was recruited by a Northwestern teammate to shave points. (Getty Images) </TD><TD width=15> </TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>The last such occurrence was at Northwestern 11 years ago.
Make that, overdue for a game-fixing scandal.
Enjoy your Final Four, folks.
Michael Franzese isn't about to calm our fears. In fact, they help business. The former Columbo crime family member makes part of his living as a gambling consultant to the NCAA.
"I do have my suspicions when I watch a game," Franzese said. "I'll look at a (betting) line and put two and two together if I'm watching a player. I always watch with a half-suspicious eye."
Franzese is a trained professional in the matter. He fixed games in his former life as a mobster. Players had no choice when they got behind on gambling debts. The NCAA knows that. It's sort of like employing a former safe cracker to see how secure your bank is.
According to mounting anecdotal evidence, NCAA basketball is surprisingly susceptible to funny stuff.
According to a 2003 NCAA survey, 1.3 percent of Division I players admitted taking money from a gambler to play poorly. In Sports Illustrated last week, a Wharton School of Business economist used his mathematical formula to suggest that 500 games over the past 16 seasons involved point shaving.
Listen to him. Franzese makes it sound easy. What's scary is his description of the fixing method seems almost too detailed to be contrived.
"You got a guard, he's 6-2, he's in his senior year, he's on his way out of school," Franzese said. "He's not going to the pros in all likelihood. (The fixer) will say, 'Listen you don't have to be broke, your team is favored by 14 tonight.
"Win by six, win by seven, don't cover the spread. I'll put 10 grand in your pocket. You do that 10 times you've got $100,000 tax free when you leave school."
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The NCAA established a department to oversee gambling and agents in the 1990s. A noble move but sometimes the task seems impossible.
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</NOSCRIPT></TD><TD width=10> </TD></TR><TR><TD colSpan=2 height=10><SPACER type="block" width="1" height="10"></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE></P>On-campus betting has mushroomed. What the NCAA considers taboo for its athletes -- persons playing poker for money -- is now a huge ratings winner on television.
Gambling is so prevalent that the NCAA has relied on athletes implicated in past point-shaving scandals to spread their word.
Franzese used to manipulate similar athletes. He spent seven years in prison after a plea bargain involving racketeering. The FBI approached him while in prison with a chance to go legit.
Tell us what you know.
Twelve years later Franzese is believed to be the only person to leave a crime family, not enter a witness protection program -- and live.
Today, he helps the association's business, which is keeping games square. If they weren't -- and they almost certainly all aren't -- the NCAA would essentially be overseeing the equivalent of pro wrestling.
"I notice the mentality of these kids today," Franzese said. "They're a lot more willing to take chances. They're a little bit more sophisticated, at least they think they are. They think they have it going on, and can outsmart a lot of people."
The kids can't, of course. Bettors lose most of the time and gambling can become an addiction.
The Las Vegas sports books, the NCAA keeps reminding us, are self-policing. If there is a sudden variance in a betting line they are alerted to possible game-fixing.
An FBI agent and NCAA staffer addressed each of the Sweet 16 teams at the site of their games. For the first time a couple of NCAA staffers went to Vegas during the first weekend of the tournament to observe the sports books.
"I'm not going to say I'm excited about it, but we welcome them," MGM Mirage sports book director Robert Walker told the Dallas Morning News.
Like any businessman, Walker prefers paying customers to observers.
"We just started working on building that relationship. That's not going to happen overnight," said Rachel Newman-Baker, the NCAA's director of agent, gambling and amateurism activities.
Her obstacles are monumental. One example: Forget Vegas. What about street bookies? Their interests don't show up in Vegas betting lines. In his day, Franzese wanted bettors to get "upside down" or unable to pay their debts.
One way or another he had you.
"When they lose money they have to find a way to pay it back," he said. "I told (athletes), you better be careful, you don't want to run into a guy like me."
Another example: The advent of online gambling has increased the NCAA's fears. Earlier this year, the president of Lehigh's sophomore class robbed a bank in order to pay off online gambling debts.
In 2003, a Wisconsin freshman from Taiwan was charged with the triple murder of three roommates. The murders were believed to stem from a dispute over gambling debts. The student then hung himself in his prison cell in January 2005.
If only the problem were just game fixing.
"At that age you don't know your limits," Franzese said. "I tell them, 'You guys don't need this, it's not a harmless pastime.'
"One thing can lead to another."
And, remember, we're overdue.
Try to enjoy your Final Four, folks.
This is more than a prediction, it's a likelihood based on the sport's own sordid law of averages. There have been seven major game-fixing scandals in the past 56 years, or one every eight years.
<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width=175 align=left><TBODY><TR><TD width=175>
Make that, overdue for a game-fixing scandal.
Enjoy your Final Four, folks.
Michael Franzese isn't about to calm our fears. In fact, they help business. The former Columbo crime family member makes part of his living as a gambling consultant to the NCAA.
"I do have my suspicions when I watch a game," Franzese said. "I'll look at a (betting) line and put two and two together if I'm watching a player. I always watch with a half-suspicious eye."
Franzese is a trained professional in the matter. He fixed games in his former life as a mobster. Players had no choice when they got behind on gambling debts. The NCAA knows that. It's sort of like employing a former safe cracker to see how secure your bank is.
According to mounting anecdotal evidence, NCAA basketball is surprisingly susceptible to funny stuff.
According to a 2003 NCAA survey, 1.3 percent of Division I players admitted taking money from a gambler to play poorly. In Sports Illustrated last week, a Wharton School of Business economist used his mathematical formula to suggest that 500 games over the past 16 seasons involved point shaving.
Listen to him. Franzese makes it sound easy. What's scary is his description of the fixing method seems almost too detailed to be contrived.
"You got a guard, he's 6-2, he's in his senior year, he's on his way out of school," Franzese said. "He's not going to the pros in all likelihood. (The fixer) will say, 'Listen you don't have to be broke, your team is favored by 14 tonight.
"Win by six, win by seven, don't cover the spread. I'll put 10 grand in your pocket. You do that 10 times you've got $100,000 tax free when you leave school."
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</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
The NCAA established a department to oversee gambling and agents in the 1990s. A noble move but sometimes the task seems impossible.
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Gambling is so prevalent that the NCAA has relied on athletes implicated in past point-shaving scandals to spread their word.
Franzese used to manipulate similar athletes. He spent seven years in prison after a plea bargain involving racketeering. The FBI approached him while in prison with a chance to go legit.
Tell us what you know.
Twelve years later Franzese is believed to be the only person to leave a crime family, not enter a witness protection program -- and live.
Today, he helps the association's business, which is keeping games square. If they weren't -- and they almost certainly all aren't -- the NCAA would essentially be overseeing the equivalent of pro wrestling.
"I notice the mentality of these kids today," Franzese said. "They're a lot more willing to take chances. They're a little bit more sophisticated, at least they think they are. They think they have it going on, and can outsmart a lot of people."
The kids can't, of course. Bettors lose most of the time and gambling can become an addiction.
The Las Vegas sports books, the NCAA keeps reminding us, are self-policing. If there is a sudden variance in a betting line they are alerted to possible game-fixing.
An FBI agent and NCAA staffer addressed each of the Sweet 16 teams at the site of their games. For the first time a couple of NCAA staffers went to Vegas during the first weekend of the tournament to observe the sports books.
"I'm not going to say I'm excited about it, but we welcome them," MGM Mirage sports book director Robert Walker told the Dallas Morning News.
Like any businessman, Walker prefers paying customers to observers.
"We just started working on building that relationship. That's not going to happen overnight," said Rachel Newman-Baker, the NCAA's director of agent, gambling and amateurism activities.
Her obstacles are monumental. One example: Forget Vegas. What about street bookies? Their interests don't show up in Vegas betting lines. In his day, Franzese wanted bettors to get "upside down" or unable to pay their debts.
One way or another he had you.
"When they lose money they have to find a way to pay it back," he said. "I told (athletes), you better be careful, you don't want to run into a guy like me."
Another example: The advent of online gambling has increased the NCAA's fears. Earlier this year, the president of Lehigh's sophomore class robbed a bank in order to pay off online gambling debts.
In 2003, a Wisconsin freshman from Taiwan was charged with the triple murder of three roommates. The murders were believed to stem from a dispute over gambling debts. The student then hung himself in his prison cell in January 2005.
If only the problem were just game fixing.
"At that age you don't know your limits," Franzese said. "I tell them, 'You guys don't need this, it's not a harmless pastime.'
"One thing can lead to another."
And, remember, we're overdue.
Try to enjoy your Final Four, folks.
