Former players among those charged in alleged scheme to rig basketball games in US and China.
Federal prosecutors in the United States have charged 20 people, including 15 former college basketball players, in what they call a betting scheme to rig National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) and Chinese Basketball Association (CBA) games.
Of the defendants, 15 played basketball for Division 1 NCAA schools as recently as the 2024-2025 season.
The other five defendants were described by authorities as fixers.
They include two men who prosecutors said on Thursday worked in the training and development of basketball players. Another was a trainer and former coach, one was a former NCAA player and two were described as gamblers, influencers and sports handicappers.
Some individuals were previously charged in an NBA-related gambling probe.
The charges, including bribery in sporting contests and conspiracy to commit wire fraud, were unsealed by federal prosecutors in Philadelphia. They accuse the defendants of conspiring to fix games from about September 2022 through February 2025.
During the 2022-2023 CBA season, the individuals sought to “fix” men’s basketball games by “point shaving”, prosecutors alleged in the documents filed in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. Point shaving is a form of cheating in which individuals try to manipulate the margin of victory.
Some of those charged allegedly sought to target games at Nicholls State University, Tulane University, Northwestern State University, La Salle University, DePaul University, Robert Morris University, University of Southern Mississippi and North Carolina A&T State University.
Players at Kennesaw State University, Coppin State University, University of New Orleans, Abilene Christian University, Eastern Michigan and Alabama State University were also targeted as part of the scheme, according to the indictment.
In the 70-page indictment, authorities said the fixers recruited the college basketball players with “bribe payments” usually ranging from $10,000 to $30,000 per game.
The indictment follows a series of NCAA investigations that led to at least 10 players receiving lifetime bans this year for bets that sometimes involved their own teams and their own performances. And the NCAA has said at least 30 players have been investigated over gambling allegations.
More than 30 people were also charged in last year’s sprawling federal takedown of illegal gambling operations linked to professional basketball.
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