Former NCAA gamers and fixers charged over rigged basketball video games, prosecutors say

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — An investigation right into a sprawling betting scheme to rig NCAA and Chinese Basketball Association video games ensnared 26 individuals, together with greater than a dozen school basketball gamers who tried to repair video games as just lately as final season, federal prosecutors mentioned Thursday.

The scheme typically revolved round fixers recruiting gamers with the promise of a giant cost in trade for purposefully underperforming throughout a recreation, prosecutors mentioned. The fixers would then place massive bets in opposition to the gamers’ groups in these video games, defrauding sportsbooks and different bettors, authorities mentioned.

Calling it an “international criminal conspiracy,” U.S. Attorney David Metcalf informed reporters in Philadelphia that this case represents a “significant corruption of the integrity of sports.” The indictment means that many others — together with unnamed gamers — had a job within the scheme however weren’t charged, and Metcalf mentioned the investigation was persevering with.

The various expenses in opposition to the 26 defendants, filed in federal courtroom in Philadelphia, embrace bribery, wire fraud and conspiracy.

Concerns about gambling and college sports have grown since 2018, when the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a federal ban on the observe, main some states to legalize it to various levels.

According to the indictment unsealed Thursday, fixers began with two video games within the Chinese Basketball Association in 2023 and, profitable there, moved on to rigging NCAA video games as just lately as January 2025.

The fixers’ scheme grew to contain greater than 39 gamers on greater than 17 completely different NCAA Division I males’s basketball groups, who then rigged and tried to rig greater than 29 video games, prosecutors mentioned.

They wagered hundreds of thousands of {dollars}, producing “substantial proceeds” for themselves, and paid a whole lot of 1000’s of {dollars} to gamers in bribes, prosecutors mentioned, with funds to gamers sometimes starting from $10,000 to $30,000 per recreation.

Prosecutors named greater than 40 colleges that had been concerned in video games that had been focused by the scheme.

Rigged video games included these performed by groups in main conferences, akin to Big East and Atlantic 10, prosecutors mentioned.

Some had been video games in opposition to nationally ranked packages whereas some had been playoff video games, together with the primary spherical of the Horizon League championship and the second spherical of the Southland Conference championship.

Some of the allegedly focused groups had been Tulane University, Buffalo State University, DePaul University, Robert Morris University, University of Southern Mississippi, Abilene Christian University, Eastern Michigan State University and the University of New Orleans.

Players usually recruited teammates to cooperate by enjoying badly, sitting out or protecting the ball away from gamers who weren’t in on the scheme to stop them from scoring. Sometimes the tried repair failed, which means the fixers misplaced their bets.

To entice gamers, fixers would textual content pictures of stacks of money. In one case, a fixer inspired a participant to recruit a St. Louis University teammate by texting him one such picture: “send that to him if he bite he bite if he don’t so be it lol,” the indictment mentioned.

Four of the gamers charged — Simeon Cottle, Carlos Hart, Oumar Koureissi and Camian Shell — performed for his or her present groups in the previous couple of days, though the allegations in opposition to them don’t contain this season, however the 2023-24 season.

Of the defendants, 15 performed basketball for Division I NCAA colleges throughout 2024-25 season, prosecutors say. Five others final performed within the NCAA within the 2023-24 season whereas one other, former NBA participant Antonio Blakeney, performed within the Chinese Basketball Association within the 2022-23 season.

The remaining 5 defendants had been described as “fixers” who recruited gamers and positioned bets. They embrace two males who prosecutors say labored within the coaching and growth of basketball gamers. Another was a coach and former coach, one was a former NCAA participant and two had been described as gamblers, influencers and sports activities handicappers.

One fixer reassured one other by texting him there have been no ensures “in this world but death taxes and Chinese basketball,” courtroom papers mentioned.

At the tip of the Chinese Basketball Association’s 2022-23 season, fixers put almost $200,000 in bribe funds and shared winnings from rigged video games into Blakeney’s storage locker in Florida, authorities mentioned.

In many cases, the defendants’ wagers on the rigged video games had been profitable. “The sportsbooks would not have paid out those wagers had they known that the defendants fixed those games,” the indictment mentioned.

One betting scandal after one other has rocked the sports activities world, the place playing income topped $11 billion for the primary three-quarters of final 12 months, in keeping with the American Gaming Association. That’s up greater than 13% from the prior 12 months, the group mentioned.

The NCAA doesn’t permit athletes or workers to guess on school video games, however it briefly allowed student-athletes to guess on skilled sports activities final 12 months earlier than rescinding that call in November.

The indictment follows a sequence of NCAA investigations that led to at the least 10 gamers receiving lifetime bans this 12 months for bets that generally concerned their very own groups and their very own performances. And the NCAA has mentioned that at the least 30 gamers have been investigated over playing allegations. More than 30 individuals had been additionally charged in final 12 months’s sprawling federal takedown of unlawful playing operations linked to skilled basketball.

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Levy reported from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Associated Press author Maryclaire Dale in Philadelphia contributed.

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