Ex-Abilene Christian participant banned for allegedly throwing video games

A former Abilene Christian males’s basketball participant was completely banned by the NCAA on Friday for allegedly serving to rig basketball video games for sports activities bettors.

According to the NCAA’s Division I Committee on Infractions, Airion Simmons — who performed at Abilene Christian from 2019 to ’24 — colluded with a teammate and agreed with a bettor to throw a March 2024 recreation for cash. In a December 2025 interview, Simmons informed NCAA investigators he was additionally contacted by a second bettor about dropping the sport for cash.

In January, Simmons and the 2 bettors had been included in a sprawling indictment by federal prosecutors in Pennsylvania on varied fees, together with bribery, fraud and conspiracy.

The point-shaving scheme typically revolved round gamblers who positioned bets and recruited gamers with the promise of a giant fee in trade for purposefully underperforming throughout a recreation, prosecutors mentioned. Those fixers would then guess in opposition to the gamers’ groups in these video games, defrauding sportsbooks and different bettors, authorities mentioned.

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

In September 2025, a former Abilene Christian males’s basketball student-athlete transferred to this system and reported that in March 2024, Simmons, together with one other teammate, tried to persuade him to affix them in purposely dropping a recreation for cash.

Later, the student-athlete who reported the violations obtained a FaceTime name with Simmons, the teammate and a bettor, who informed the group to throw the sport for cash. The student-athlete who reported the violations indicated that by the point he entered the sport, the ultimate end result was already decided, and his efficiency had no influence on the end result.

Simmons informed NCAA investigators he informed the bettors he had a hand harm and his standing for the sport was unclear, and he shared that one other teammate wouldn’t be enjoying within the recreation. Simmons was supplied $3,500 to “play bad” within the recreation. He left the sport with a hand harm after enjoying 11 minutes.

Simmons mentioned he met somebody in a Dallas parking zone to get money for throwing the sport. He obtained the money and didn’t pay the opposite student-athletes he had conspired with, the NCAA mentioned.

According to the NCAA, Simmons agreed to be interviewed by its investigators however declined to take part within the processing of the case.

Simmons is the most recent scholar athlete to lose his eligibility as a part of the point-shaving scheme. Two former Fordham basketball gamers had been additionally completely banned by the NCAA final month.