FanHouse Point Shaving

... And the University of Toledo appears to have been just about the only one.

A fantastic, exceptionally long and detailed article on the Toledo point shaving investigations and probably scandal from Mike Fish and George Traber at ESPN.com. The article covers so much ground this post won't do it justice, but one aspect really stood out to me.

It seemed everyone except the University of Toledo and the Rockets Athletic Department knew there was something bad going down. Not only didn't the know what was happening, no one was in any hurry to tell them.

The FBI had been investigating things going back to December 2005 from information gleaned from a wiretap. Las Vegas sports books were suspicious dating back to the 2005 season.

By early in the 2005 football season, the smart guys along the glitzy Las Vegas Strip were already voicing suspicions about Toledo games. When officials with the MGM Mirage sports book formally brought concerns to the Nevada Gaming Control Board that fall, no one yet had a clue the FBI was already onto the case. But as a precaution, the 10 sports books affiliated with MGM Mirage didn't accept bets on Toledo's final eight games. The next year, in 2006, they capped bets on Toledo at $1,000 a game.

The Nevada Gaming Board was notified of suspicions before the 2006 season. Offshore gambling sites based in the Caribbean also had their suspicions raised in the 2005 season.

ESPN crack investigative reporter Mike Fish (along with George J. Tanber) have revealed new details into the Toledo gambling probe. The big news is that that an NCAA representative sent an email to the athletic director in November telling him that the NCAA was done investigating the situation.

The e-mail from [the NCAA's gambling pointwoman, Rachel] Newman-Baker was sent to [Toledo Athletic Director Mike] O'Brien in response to an e-mail sent by O'Brien earlier that day in which O'Brien asked Newman-Baker what the result was of the NCAA probe into the UT-Kent game.

The university tried to retrieve the e-mail from O'Brien's hard drive without success. O'Brien later found a hard copy of the e-mail in a file, according to UT spokesman Tobin Klinger.

In his e-mail, O'Brien wrote: "At the conclusion of the [Oct. 11] meeting, I asked what the next step would be and you indicated you would respond. With the meeting occurring almost a month ago, I thought I should contact you. I would assume that nothing has come of this and that you had nothing to share."

In her response to O'Brien, the first contact she had with him since Oct. 11, Newman-Baker said "no additional investigation was warranted at this time."

Additionally, the man fingered for involvement in the scandal is claiming that investigators and the government have no evidence to prosecute him.

"They got nothing," Ghazi "Gary" Manni said in an interview with USA TODAY. Manni, a Detroit-area resident who describes himself as a gambler, was alleged to have conspired with Toledo football and basketball players to fix games, according to court documents.

But Manni said his contacts with Toledo athletes, including running back Harvey "Scooter" McDougle Jr., was about friendship and had nothing to do with fixing games.

In the meantime, McDougle's father is hoping his son can return to the field and be cleared of the situation.

What's puzzling about all of this is that Vegas is not a place to make mistakes about something like this. They were the first to raise a red flag about some irregularities involving a Toledo football game and as we reported here earlier, there's a 99% chance something unusual or illegal happened in the way of betting for that game.

Back to square one? Maybe.

Previously at FanHouse
Point Shaving Can Only Be Limited
Toledo Gambling Scandal 99% Funny Business
This Is Why Legal Gambling Helps
Point Shaving At Toledo
FanHouse: NCAA Football Gambling

Whatever is actually happening in the Toledo point shaving scandal is unclear with charges dropped (for now). It has renewed interest in point shaving and the college games.

Some Las Vegas sports gambling experts are suspicious of the Toledo football team's performance in the '05 season. Lopsided betting to one side or the other of a line changes the point spread - and raises questions in the gambling community.

During that season, the lines moved by two points or more on seven games, says RJ Bell, president of Pregame.com. Each time, the bettors driving the changes won. "The odds of that happening randomly are 128-1 ... which tells me these guys knew something."

The "betting patterns" on Toledo during the 2005 season became so suspicious that Nevada's State Gaming Control Board investigated two games, chief enforcement officer Jerry Markling says. After concluding there were no violations by state casinos, the board closed its investigation in December 2005.

As I wrote before, the suspicions were noticed by legal sportsbooks. They have important interests in stopping any point shaving. They take the financial hit if the money gets too lopsided.

College sports are logically the only reliable target for any sports fix. The money made in professional sports by the athletes (who are in a position to impact the game) is just too huge to be worth the risk of being paid to shave points or throw a game. College "amateurs," though, are more likely to have a price since they don't get paid, or can be put in a compromising situation with greater ease. (Even if collegiate sports paid some stipend, the odds are it wouldn't be enough.)

This is what inevitably leads to the argument of "banning" gambling on college sports. The dupe to suggest that in this article is Justin Wolfers, assistant professor of business and public policy at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School. The idea is stupid, because it would only ban legal gambling on college sports in the country. Forgetting that most of the sports gambling in the US is illegal bookmaking. It also wouldn't shut down all the off-shore or out of the country sports books. The gambler who is (allegedly) involved in the Toledo point shaving scandal was placing the bets in Canada.

Point shaving is going to rear its ugly head in college athletics periodically, simply because there are always people who will try to cheat a system. And there are always those who have a price.

Previously at Fanhouse:
This is Why Legal Gambling Helps
Point Shaving at Toledo

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

I keep going back and forth as to whether point shaving schemes at smaller schools make more or less sense. On the one hand, the programs and the players draw a lot less scrutiny as to the actions. Making it easier for things to come in under the radar.

The counter-argument is that these smaller programs hardly see the heavier gambling action. So if there is any significant betting one way or the other, it can catch everyone's attention when there is sudden swing.

The Toledo Athletic Department is finding itself rocked with a scandal that definitely involves the football team and quite possibly involves the basketball team as well.

As the 2005 GMAC Bowl drew closer, a Michigan gambler assured other bettors that University of Toledo football player Harvey "Scooter" McDougle offered bribes to teammates so the point spread would be covered, according to a federal criminal complaint.

Mr. McDougle, 22, who was charged Thursday in U.S. District Court in Detroit with conspiring with others in a points-shaving scheme, sat out the game because of injuries.

So far no other players have been named.

McDougle was charged in Federal Court with "conspiring to bribe to affect the outcome of a sporting event." This carries a maximum sentence of 5 years and a $250,000 fine.

The guy arranging everything so far has only been identified as "Gary." He would place the wagers in casinos in Canada. At least one other player was offered around $10,000 to sit out a game. McDougle received cars, cash and other gifts from "Gary."

The filings indicate that the basketball team may have been involved in point shaving as well. "Gary" apparently bet on both sports and McDougle may have helped him in contacting basketball players.

This will be a huge blow to Toledo Football Coach Tom Amstutz. He's considered one of the better coaches in the MAC and often mentioned as a potential target for the bigger name schools. Few coaches, though, survive point shaving scandals.