{"id":2300,"date":"2019-02-26T12:52:08","date_gmt":"2019-02-26T17:52:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jsel.journalshls.wpengine.com\/?p=2300"},"modified":"2023-07-25T11:43:58","modified_gmt":"2023-07-25T15:43:58","slug":"2007-nba-ref-scandal-back-in-play","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/jsel\/2019\/02\/2007-nba-ref-scandal-back-in-play\/","title":{"rendered":"2007 NBA Ref Scandal Back in Play"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>After pleading <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thedailybeast.com\/former-nba-referee-tim-donaghy-conspired-to-fix-games-espn\">guilty\u00a0<\/a>in 2007 to conspiracy to commit wire fraud and transmit gambling information, former NBA referee Tim Donaghy is back in the news. In an in-depth <a href=\"http:\/\/www.espn.com\/nba\/story\/_\/id\/25980368\/how-former-ref-tim-donaghy-conspired-fix-nba-games\">report<\/a>, ESPN analyzed the games Donaghy officiated and interviewed his co-conspirators. The findings reveal that Donaghy did more than just bet on the games he worked \u2013 he fixed them.<\/p>\n<p>The scheme was relatively simple. Donaghy would predict if a team playing in one of his games would cover the spread.\u00a0 If Donaghy was right, he received $2,000 from his gambling associates.\u00a0 If he was wrong \u2013 which he rarely was \u2013 he didn\u2019t lose anything.<\/p>\n<p>ESPN\u2019s analysis shows that the chances that an unbiased referee would make the same calls as Donaghy was <a href=\"https:\/\/foxsportsradio.iheart.com\/content\/2019-02-20-investigation-reveals-how-nba-referee-tim-donaghy-fixed-games\/\">6,155-to-1<\/a>.\u00a0The revelation doesn\u2019t just challenge what Donaghy alleged, it challenges the NBA\u2019s party line that games can&#8217;t be fixed. It\u2019s unclear whether these revelations will have any impact on the recent trend towards legalizing professional sports gambling.<\/p>\n<p><em>Thomas \u201cBuddy\u201d Bardenwerper<\/em><em>\u00a0is an Entertainment Highlight Contributor for the Harvard Journal of Sports and Entertainment Law and a current first year student at Harvard Law School (Class of 2021).<\/em><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File:Tim_Donaghy_in_2010.jpg\">Tim Donaghy in 2010<\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/User:Blurpeace\">Blurpeace<\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-sa\/3.0\">CC BY-SA 3.0<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>After pleading guilty\u00a0in 2007 to conspiracy to commit wire fraud and transmit gambling information, former NBA referee Tim Donaghy is back in the news. In an in-depth report, ESPN analyzed the games Donaghy officiated and interviewed his co-conspirators. The findings reveal that Donaghy did more than just bet on the games he worked \u2013 he [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39,"featured_media":2298,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center 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