FanHouse Gambling Scandal

Sports betting expert R.J. Bell says there is a 99% certainty that some kind of funny business was going on with Toledo football in 2005.

Movements in the betting line are responses to disproportionate amounts of money bet a certain way. During the 2005 Toledo football regular season, lines on their team's games moved two points or more on 7 occasions - and ALL 7 TIMES the way the bettors were betting won against the opening line. The odds of this happening randomly are 128 to 1. It can be stated, with greater than 99% mathematical certainty, that the outcomes of those games were affected by OUTSIDE factors!

It would have been really nice to catch the Cheaty McCheatpants sometime before the end of the season but I guess this will suffice. Not that I know a thing about sports betting (I don't) but I'm surprised Vegas didn't catch this earlier.

Ever-cautious, FanBlogs wants some links/further proof, although they say Bell is credible. Good call.

(Via: Topix)

Has it really been 7 years since the last misguided attempts by college coaches and the NCAA to try and ban legal gambling on college sports. Cynically, I expect that the Toledo point shaving scandal that is now blossoming will renew calls for the sort of ban. They will cite the gambling on college sports as being the reason for it happening. Not that it would matter in this day and age. Not with the internet, offshore betting houses, legal sportsbooks in Canada and England. That won't matter. Someone will strike a righteous tone of how legal gambling and publishing point spreads encourages scandals like this.

It's a joke. How do you think Federal officials became aware of something fishy going on at Toledo in the first place?

The oddsmaker, Kenny White, chief operating officer of Las Vegas Sports Consultants, said that beginning in the 2004 season he and his associates noticed that there was heavy betting on certain Toledo football games and those of another Mid-American Conference team he declined to name.

"But then it stopped and it was just Toledo," he said.

The unusual betting pattern continued into the 2005 season, according to White. As his suspicions grew, he watched tape of all of Toledo's football games in 2004 and part of 2005.

"We really couldn't pinpoint a single player or coach or official," he said. "But we knew something was happening there."

At that point, about October 2005, White said he filed a report with the Nevada Gaming Commission and the NCAA. His report did not mention basketball games.

It's in legal sportsbooks' best interest to make sure the games are clean. If the games are being fixed or point-shaving, it hurts them. Notice that even the NCAA was notified of the problem. The sportsbooks are happy to alert the NCAA to potential scandals.

Previously at Fanouse:
Point Shaving at Toledo