6 of the Biggest Sports Gambling Scandals

Professional baseball was tainted by gambling rumors from the beginning—the first known “fixed” baseball game was played in 1865—but no scandal shook up the sport more than the trial of the 1919 Chicago White Sox, accused of throwing the World Series for mob money.

The White Sox were heavy favorites against the Cincinnati Reds in the 1919 World Series with heavy hitters like “Shoeless” Joe Jackson and star pitcher Eddie Cicotte. But sportswriters grew suspicious when the normally controlled Cicotte hit the very first Cincinnati batter with a wild pitch. The White Sox blew the rest of the series with erratic pitching, fielding errors and weak hitting.

Although accusations of game rigging dogged the White Sox, it wasn’t until the end of the 1920 season that eight players—including Jackson and Cicotte—were indicted for conspiring with underworld gambling syndicates to fix the 1919 World Series. The press dubbed the accused players the Chicago “Black Sox.”

In grand jury testimonies, Cicotte and Jackson confessed to taking money for throwing games, though nothing close to the $100,000 the players were promised. (A young fan outside the courtroom famously cried, “Say it ain’t so, Joe.”) But when the Black Sox case went to trial in 1921, the jury acquitted all eight players.

Baseball commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis ignored the verdict and banned all eight from baseball for life. They were posthumously reinstated in March 2025.

In the years following World War II, the University of Kentucky men’s basketball team was virtually unstoppable—the Wildcats won back-to-back national championships in 1948 and 1949 and notched their third NCAA title in 1951. Head coach Adolph Rupp’s teams were led by superstars Ralph Beard and Alex Groza, who were on their way to brilliant NBA careers when they were implicated in the biggest gambling scandal in college sports.

The Kentucky players were among 35 former and active college basketball players accused of “point shaving”—purposefully missing shots to avoid beating the gambling “spread.” Between 1947 and 1951, prosecutors alleged that at least 86 college games were fixed. At a high-profile trial, 20 players and 14 gamblers were convicted. The NBA banned both Beard and Groza from the league.

The Wildcats were not the only team implicated in the scandal, but the NCAA decided to send a clear message. Kentucky became the first program to receive the “death penalty”—they were barred from playing the 1952-1953 season, in which the Wildcats were once again favored to win it all.

In 1978, Rick Kuhn was a backup forward for the Boston College basketball team when he met Henry Hill, the real-life mobster played by Ray Liotta in the movie Goodfellas.

Kuhn wasn’t a star for the Eagles, but he played enough to be useful to Hill, an associate of the Lucchese crime syndicate. The mob wanted Kuhn and two of his teammates to help with a point-shaving scheme during the upcoming basketball season.

When Hill asked how much Kuhn wanted for his role, Kuhn said $100,000. “I like this kid!” said Hill.

Fixing college basketball games was only one of Hill’s many rackets. In 1980, he was arrested on drug charges and questioned about his involvement in the high-profile Lufthansa robbery at John F. Kennedy International Airport in 1978. Hill struck an immunity deal with the FBI and admitted to the point-shaving scheme, too.

Kuhn received a 10-year prison sentence—the stiffest penalty ever handed down for a gambling scandal—but only served 28 months.

Pete Rose’s hitting record will likely never be broken in Major League Baseball. During his 24-year career, Rose tallied 4,256 hits, an achievement that should have guaranteed him a place in the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York. But Rose’s remarkable career was tarnished by revelations that he bet on dozens of his own games while both a player and a coach.

Rose played nearly his entire career with the Cincinnati Reds. After he retired as a player in 1986, he became the full-time manager of the Reds. According to an MLB investigation by John Dowd, Rose used a network of associates to bet on Reds games in 1985, 1986 and 1987.

Rose denied the allegations but in 1989 came to an agreement with baseball commissioner A. Bartlett Giamatti to declare himself permanently ineligible to be part of MLB. The lifetime ban was later applied to the Hall of Fame.

In 2004, Rose admitted to gambling on baseball in his autobiography My Prison Without Bars. But he swore that he always bet on his teams to win and never did anything to alter the outcome of a game.

Rose died in 2024 at 83 years old. In 2025, baseball commissioner Rob Manfred removed Rose and other deceased MLB players like “Shoeless” Joe Jackson from the “permanently ineligible” list, opening the possibility of induction into the Hall of Fame.

In 2006, the New Jersey State Police announced three arrests for illegal sports gambling in a sweeping investigation dubbed “Operation Slap Shot.” Over a period of 40 days, an underground gambling ring had processed more than 1,000 bets on professional sports, totaling more than $1.7 million.

One of the alleged ringleaders was Richard Tocchet—a former NHL player and then–assistant coach with the Phoenix Coyotes who was close friends with retired hockey legend Wayne Gretzky. During the investigation, it was revealed that Gretzky’s wife, Janet Jones Gretzky, had placed bets through Tocchet.

Tocchet pleaded guilty, as did James Harney, a former New Jersey state trooper who helped run the gambling operation. Despite the flashy name “Operation Slap Shot,” no one under investigation was convicted of fixing hockey games or even betting on hockey games. In the end, Jones Gretsky was never charged with a crime.

As part of their plea deals, Tocchet received probation, and Harney was sentenced to five years in prison.

Tim Donaghy refereed 13 seasons in the NBA. An admitted gambling addict, Donaghy started betting on NBA games in 2003, including games he was officiating. And for most of those games, he picked the winner.

Some of Donaghy’s childhood friends caught wind of the referee’s scheme and wanted in. James “The Sheep” Battista struck a deal with Donaghy in late 2006. He would pay Donaghy $2,000 each time he correctly predicted the winner of a game he officiated.

Since Donaghy got it right 88 percent of the time, Battista acted as a bookie wagering millions of dollars of other people’s money on Donaghy’s picks.

When he was caught in 2007, Donaghy admitted to gambling on games but claimed that he never “fixed” games. An ESPN investigation, however, found that Donaghy adjusted his foul calls to prevent teams from beating the spread.

Donaghy and Battista were both sentenced to 15 months in jail. Along with a third conspirator, they were ordered to pay the NBA $217,000 in restitution.