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Sports Bribery Program

The purpose of the FBI's Sports Presentation Program is to assist the college and professional sporting associations in ensuring the integrity of the sporting events they represent. The program calls upon FBI agents to utilize their investigative experience and expertise to educate the athletes on areas of concern such as gambling, bribery, and drugs and to explain how organized crime may attempt to corrupt them. In addition, the FBI agents emphasize to the players the enormous influence they have on today's youth as role models.

The FBI is also responsible for investigating violations of various federal statutes which regulate the sports industry as it relates to gambling and corruption. These include Title 18, United States Code, Sections 224, 892, 1084, 1952, 1953, and 1955.

A good example of the FBI's work on sports bribery cases is the 1994 investigation of the Arizona State University Basketball program. In March of 1994, unprecedented heavy betting on the 3/5/94 National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) basketball game between Arizona State University (ASU) and University of Washington (UW) aroused suspicions of Las Vegas casinos, the Nevada Gaming Control Board (NGCB), PAC-10 Conference officials, and NCAA officials. Typical betting on ASU games totaled about $50,000. According to some estimates, betting on this game had reached over $1 million. Some of the casinos and the NGCB took the game off the boards at least briefly because of their suspicion. This started the investigation and the results of the inquiry by these officials was ultimately turned over to the FBI in Phoenix who then initiated an investigation.

The investigation revealed that two ASU players were involved in a scheme to shave points on four games for the benefit of both La Cosa Nostra Organized Crime figures and other individuals. These games were:

• ASU v. Oregon State on 1/27/1994, in which ASU was picked to win by 14.5 points, and won by only 6;
• ASU v. University of Oregon on 1/29/1994, in which ASU was picked to win by 11.5 points, and again won by only 6;
• ASU v. Southern California on 2/19/1994, in which ASU was picked to win by 9 points, and lost by 12; and
• ASU v. University of Washington on 3/5/1994, in which ASU was initially picked to win by 11 points, which dropped to 3 because of heavy betting, however, ASU won by 18. (Rumors that the team was notified at half-time of scrutiny by officials may have resulted in the team beating the points spread and causing the subjects to lose $350,000)

One of the players involved had amassed $32,000 in gambling debts betting with a campus bookie. This player was recruited to fix games in exchange for forgiveness of his gambling debts plus payments totaling $60,000 for all four games. The first player recruited a second player who received $25,000 per game to help fix the games.

Investigation revealed that there were three different conspiracy groups involved. One based in Chicago involving LCN associates and members, one with ties to LCN associates in New Jersey, and a separate group of campus bookies not affiliated with LCN figures. Both players ultimately confessed, as did several other participants in the conspiracy.

Total bets on the first three games were estimated at over $1 million. Apparently the word got out before the fourth game because there was widespread, heavy betting against ASU including offshore gambling operations. Several convictions were obtained with sentences up to almost four years in prison.

Source: Federal Bureau of Investigation

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