How Gamblers Are Rigging College Basketball

Summary

Podcast Summary: "How Gamblers Are Rigging College Basketball" – The Journal, March 18, 2026

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Overview

This episode, hosted by Ryan Knudsen with sports reporter Jared Diamond, investigates a federal indictment that exposed a gambling ring rigging college basketball games, particularly at smaller schools. The discussion unpacks how gambling syndicates preyed on vulnerable student-athletes, used new sports betting technologies, and exploited regulatory loopholes—casting a shadow over March Madness and raising new threats to the integrity of college sports.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

The Robert Morris Point-Shaving Scheme

• How the Scheme Started
  • In 2024, a man texted a group chat looking for a player at Robert Morris University willing to help throw a game (00:05).
  • Marquise Hastings, then the team’s leading scorer, allegedly agreed, recruiting two teammates to miss shots and commit fouls—to make sure the team was trailing by at least two points at halftime (00:54–01:19).
  • Gamblers then placed heavy bets against Robert Morris on first-half point spreads and paid out the players (01:19–01:51).

“It is the simplest, most classic form of corruption in sports.”
— Jared Diamond (01:55)

• Getting Caught
  • The scheme was ultimately uncovered and indicted in federal court, but the scandal had already sown public distrust—especially during March Madness (02:06–02:31, 02:31–03:06).

“You just need people to wonder… Is this real? Is what I’m watching genuine?”
— Jared Diamond (02:31)

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Meet the Gamblers: Henin & Fairley

• Who They Are
  • Shane Henin and Marvez Fairley are described as “hustlers” or touts who sell gambling picks online (05:06–05:40).
  • They previously engineered similar schemes in the Chinese basketball league.

“As part of a living…they sell gambling picks. You run Instagram accounts, websites… You sell your expertise.”
— Jared Diamond (05:13)

• Why Small Colleges?
  • Legalized online betting has extended markets to every Division I game, increasing opportunity and payout—making it worthwhile to target little-known schools like Robert Morris (06:37–06:59).
  • New Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL) rules mostly benefit star players at major programs, leaving smaller-school athletes financially vulnerable (07:35–08:36).

“There aren’t companies begging to have high school recruits sign with those schools. There’s no NIL money for you, essentially. Probably not.”
— Jared Diamond (07:35)

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How the Scheme Worked

• Recruitment & Rationalization
  • Henin & Fairley used contacts such as AAU coaches to reach vulnerable players at small programs (08:43–09:31).
  • They minimized the perceived wrongdoing: instead of asking players to lose, they suggested only “shaving points” in the first half—a tactic that felt less consequential.

“We’re not even asking you to lose… just make sure at the end of the first half you’re down by at least five points. Then after halftime, go out there and do your thing…”
— Jared Diamond (09:54)

“[The players could think] I’m just going to make a little bit of money and then I’m going to have a great comeback…”
— Ryan Knudsen (10:25)

• For years, such schemes went unnoticed (10:30–10:41).

• Scale of the Operation

  • Prosecutors estimate at least 39 athletes at 17 schools were involved, with millions of dollars in illicit winnings (10:41–10:55).
  • Bets frequently reached hundreds of thousands of dollars collectively per game (10:55–11:33).

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Discovery: The NBA Connection

• From College to Pro
  • The network was exposed when suspicious betting activity on an NBA player's prop bets (Jontay Porter) triggered scrutiny (12:48–13:38).
  • Excessive bets signaled the fix, prompting deeper investigation—eventually uncovering the college schemes as well (13:38–13:57).

“They were betting more money on one bet on [Jontay] Porter’s props than had probably been bet altogether in the entire season.”
— Jared Diamond (13:38)

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Regulation and NCAA Response

• Regulatory Challenges
  • The NCAA is alarmed, having always opposed the rise of sports betting, and lobbies to restrict “prop bets” (bets on statistics other than the final score), which make cheating easier and more tempting for players (14:24–15:51).
  • NCAA President Charlie Baker calls for a ban on collegiate prop bets—especially “first half unders”—but sportsbooks resist because such bets carry high profit margins (15:51–17:01).

“Gaming companies can also do this right now and take them off their platforms… [it’s] the right thing to do.”
— Charlie Baker (16:11)

• Why It’s Hard to Police
  • Prop bets and parlays drive sportsbook revenue and are unlikely to be restricted without regulatory mandates (16:35–17:01).

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The Larger Problem: Doubt in the Game

• Fan Skepticism
  • The damage is as much about perception as reality: every mistake in a game prompts suspicion among fans, risking trust in the entire enterprise (17:01–19:38).

“The entire business completely relies on one assumption… that the product is genuine.”
— Jared Diamond (17:16)

“Just the thought creeping into your mind as a fan, it risks bringing down the entire industry.”
— Jared Diamond (18:36)

• Jared admits he can no longer watch games without thinking about potential corruption.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “It’s going to be a lot harder to watch, especially smaller college basketball, without having… in the back of your mind, is this real?” – Jared Diamond (02:31)
• “There's no NIL money for you, essentially. Probably not. There aren't companies begging to have high school recruits sign with those schools.” – Jared Diamond (07:35)
• “They're more vulnerable… your buddy, the guy you grew up with, who's at Kansas, he's making eight grand this year. What are you making? Well, I could pay you something.” – Jared Diamond (09:19)
• “We’re not even asking you to lose the game. Just make sure… you’re down by at least five points.” – Jared Diamond (09:54)
• “They made millions of dollars, many millions, over the span of several years with several teams.” – Jared Diamond (10:55)
• “These are the guys we know about. That’s the problem… the entire business completely relies on one assumption… that the product is genuine.” – Jared Diamond (17:16)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• 00:05 – How the Robert Morris point-shaving plot began
• 01:19 – Execution of the scheme and cash payouts
• 02:31 – The emotional fallout: fans’ suspicions
• 05:06 – Introduction of ringleaders Henin and Fairley
• 06:37 – How legal online betting made schemes bigger and easier
• 07:35 – The NIL loophole: why small-school athletes are vulnerable
• 09:54 – How gamblers recruited players and rationalized point shaving
• 10:41 – Scale: 39 athletes, 17 schools, millions of dollars
• 12:48 – NBA investigation unwinds the broader network
• 14:24 – NCAA’s resistance and lobbying against college prop bets
• 16:11 – NCAA President’s plea for banning “first half unders”
• 17:16 – The fragility of trust in college basketball
• 18:36 – How suspicion alone undermines the sport

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Conclusion

This episode delivers a sobering look at how the intersection of legalized gambling and college basketball vulnerability has created new incentives—and opportunities—for game-fixing. The damage isn’t just monetary or criminal; it’s existential, risking fundamental trust in one of America’s most beloved sporting traditions. The voices of the hosts—skeptical, analytical, but deeply concerned—underscore the mounting challenges college athletics faces in an era where every missed shot can look like a fix.

Transcript

[Ryan Knudsen]

In 2024, a man wanted to rig a college basketball game so he could bet on it and make some money. So he sent a text message to a group chat. You got somebody at Robert Morris. Robert Morris is a small D1 college in Pennsylvania. And the sender was trying to find someone on the team who would agree to throw the game. Our colleague Jared diamond covers sports and sports betting, and he followed the events that started with this text message. How did the person on the other end of that text respond?

[Jared Diamond]

Very quickly, it became clear that somebody in this group did in fact have somebody at Robert Morris who might be willing to shave points or throw a college basketball game in exchange for money.

[Ryan Knudsen]

That person was Marquise Hastings, the leading scorer for Robert Morris that year. Hastings allegedly agreed to not only help, but also recruit two of his teammates to join in. What they needed to do was underperform, Miss shots, make dumb fouls.

[Jared Diamond]

Hastings from outside, no, on a hard back ass.

[Ryan Knudsen]

All to make sure that their team was down by at least two points at the end of the first half

[Jared Diamond]

and a foul at the other end of the floor. In the meantime, the people who were responsible for these tech messages were furiously betting as much money as they possibly could against Robert Morris, covering the spread in the first half of that game. Those gamblers got away with lots of money as a result of those bets. And not long after that, the gamblers met up with the player and said, hey, here's your bribe payout that we promised you in exchange for doing what you did.

[Ryan Knudsen]

So essentially, they were cheating to make money.

[Jared Diamond]

Yeah, very simply, it is the simplest sort of most classic form of corruption in sports.

[Ryan Knudsen]

These gamblers were caught and charged in this alleged point shaving scheme. And earlier this year, a judge unsealed a federal indictment against them, bringing the details of the scheme to light for the first time. Hastings, the player, has pleaded not guilty. But even though the alleged gambling ring was uncovered, Jared says the damage to sports and this year's March Madness tournament has already been done.

[Jared Diamond]

You know, everyone's talking about what happened and it's understandable. But even what didn't happen is a problem. Right? You don't even need games to be on the take for there to be big problems with sports. You just need people to wonder if they are right. And now it's. I find, I think a lot of fans probably feel this way. It's going to be a lot harder to watch, especially smaller college basketball, without having. In the back of your mind, is this real? Is what I'm watching genuinely

[Ryan Knudsen]

welcome to the Journal, our show about money, business and power. I'm Ryan knudsen. It's Wednesday, March 18th. Coming up on the show, inside a college sports betting Ring.

[NCAA President Charlie Baker]

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[Ryan Knudsen]

At the center of this gambling ring at Robert Morris were two men, Shane Hennin and Marvez Fairley.

[Jared Diamond]

And essentially these are a group of hustlers, for lack of a better word, people that are in the sports gambling space. In the case of guys like Shane Hennan and Marva Fairley, there are people they as part of, for a living, essentially sell gambling picks, right? They run Instagram accounts and websites where they're touts. It's called being a tout. You sell good gambling picks willing to pay for your expertise.

[Ryan Knudsen]

Here's fairly touting picks in a video on Instagram.

[Jared Diamond]

It's exclusive.

[NCAA President Charlie Baker]

Everything added up, all research, all the

[Jared Diamond]

analysts, everything's on the same game. It's exclusive. Tap in right now.

[Ryan Knudsen]

You going to win?

[Jared Diamond]

We bidding all that. Tap in right now. Everything adding up.

[Ryan Knudsen]

Fairley's lawyer declined to comment on the college basketball rigging accusations. An attorney for Henan has said that his betting losses were far bigger than his winnings. The two allegedly got their start rigging Basketball games in China by connecting with an American in the Chinese basketball league. And they continued what they were doing in the U.S. there are two things that helped Hennin and fairly. The first is the rise of sports betting apps like DraftKings and FanDuel that brought millions of dollars into the sports betting world. It made it possible to make a lot more money than when betting markets were limited to Vegas in the black market.

[Jared Diamond]

We are in the era of ubiquitous legal sports gambling in the United States. You could bet at a legal sportsbook or Online sportsbook, Vandal DraftKings on any college basketball game, Division 1 college basketball game, anywhere in the country. Right? Those markets are available. Doesn't matter if it's Duke or Robert Morris. Those markets are out there. You could bet on them.

[Ryan Knudsen]

The Sportsbook alliance, which represents major online betting apps like FanDuel and DraftKings, said in a memo that legal sports betting enables transparency, empowers oversight and strengthens accountability. It said, quote, regulated U.S. sports betting industry is not a threat to sports integrity. It's a cornerstone of it. The other thing that helped this scheme is that a few years ago, college athletes were finally allowed to make money off their skills, mostly through name, image and likeness deals, basically endorsements. But only the top players get that.

[Jared Diamond]

You go to North Carolina if you're a big recruit. That's North Carolina, Duke, Kansas, Kentucky, want. There might be millions of dollars for you to choose that school, but there are, you know, 400 college basketball teams around. Most of them are not Duke, North Carolina, Kansas, Kentucky. Most of them are Abilene Christian, Southern Mississippi, Robert Morris, Buffalo, whatever it is. There's no nil money for you, essentially. Probably not. There's no, there aren't companies begging to have high school recruits sign with those schools. There is no nil money for you.

[Ryan Knudsen]

Maybe the local car wash in the, in the, in the college town, but nothing. No, no big bucks, right?

[Jared Diamond]

Maybe, yeah, we'll get them a pair of sneakers or something, you know, like. But there isn't the big money in the nil world, in the pay for play world. They're operating in entirely different financial realms essentially. So these small schools, they're a player, they're not making any money.

[Ryan Knudsen]

The players aren't making money, but you can still bet on the games. And that's where Henin and Fairley come in.

[Jared Diamond]

They have connections in the college basketball world. People that are in the basketball space, guys that are, you know, local coaches, AAU coaches, you know, that might work as, you know, advisors or agents type. These type of people, the people that are sort of in the college, college basketball sphere. They get them in, say, this is a. We can make some money doing this. We just got to get to players, find some players willing to do this. So they. They start. They start targeting small teams. Teams like Robert Morris, Southern Mississippi, Abilene Christian.

[Ryan Knudsen]

Yeah, I could see how their offer might be really tempting because, like, they don't make any money. So here's a chance.

[Jared Diamond]

That's why they target them, because they're more vulnerable. Right. They could say, hey, your buddies, the guy that you grew up with, the kid that you played against your whole life, who's at Kansas, he's making eight grand this year. What are you making? Well, I could pay you something.

[Ryan Knudsen]

If you do, there's no chance you're going to go to the NBA. This is probably going to be the end of your career. Here is in college.

[Jared Diamond]

You're at a small school, Right. It's very rare that someone of these small schools going to the NBA. So you could see how these players would be vulnerable to something like this.

[Ryan Knudsen]

The other way Henin and Fairley tailored their offers was to try to make the players feel like they weren't actually throwing these games. They were just shaving a few points off the first half.

[Jared Diamond]

These days, you could bet on just about anything. And one of the things you could bet on is not just the point spread of the full game, but the point spread of just the first half of a college basketball game. And they were able to tell these kids, hey, we're not even asking you to lose the game. Just make sure at the end of the first half, you're, you know, down by at least five points. Then after halftime, go out there and do your thing, take care of business, win the game. Kind of diabolical, because then you could see, at least I could see how the player might be able to rationalize that in his head. Well, I'm not throwing the game.

[Ryan Knudsen]

Yeah, I'm not actually losing everything for my team. I'm just going to make a little bit of money and then I'm going to have a great comeback.

[Jared Diamond]

And then the second half, no harm, no foul. We'll win the game by 10. No one will ever notice. Well, guess what? For two years, nobody did notice. Now people notice.

[Ryan Knudsen]

In total, prosecutors say this scandal involved at least 39 athletes across 17 different schools. All in all, this ring of gambling organizers cleared millions of dollars.

[Jared Diamond]

They made millions of dollars, many millions, over the span of several years with several teams. In many cases, there were individual Games where across multiple sportsbooks, they were putting down well into the six figures. Just on one game, right? Not all in one bet, not all one person, but they had a network of people that were all involved, all placing bets, pooling the money. There were games, they had 200, 300, $400,000 on the line in one game, you could clear a lot of money. If you have that much money on the outcome one game, you're doing this again and again and again.

[Ryan Knudsen]

How this scheme fell apart is after the break.

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[Ryan Knudsen]

Hennan and Fairley's college basketball gambling scheme was first uncovered in the NBA. The same people who ran this scheme in low level D1 basketball ran a similar scheme in pro basketball. It started with a former Toronto Raptors player named Jontay Porter that was uncovered

[Jared Diamond]

because someone in the proxy network of bettors got a little too greedy, let's say placed a bet on johntay Porter failing. This was about Johntay Porter individual prop bets, right? Johntay Porter failing to reach certain thresholds and points, rebounds, assists, tried to bet a little too much money at one time on that market and the sportsbook said no, no, no no no, this is very suspicious.

[Ryan Knudsen]

There's no way that somebody's going to be betting this much money on this small outcome.

[Jared Diamond]

They were betting more money on one bet on Dante Porter's props than like had probably been bet altogether in the entire season around the country after this

[Ryan Knudsen]

NBA scheme was uncovered, the US government started investigating and found that it was also allegedly happening in college basketball.

[Jared Diamond]

That is essentially what we know and how it got uncovered. But it's important to understand that all of these Basketball gambling cases. And I've, I've come on this podcast and talked about versions of this probably two or three other times even before this conversation. They're all of a piece, right? They're all related. They all involve some of the same people. There's through lines running through all of them.

[Ryan Knudsen]

What is the NCAA said about this cheating scandal and the ability for, for people to cheat in this way?

[Jared Diamond]

The NCAA is, I wouldn't say panicking, but they're certainly less than thrilled, let's put it that way. The NCAA has this entire time been a lot more outspoken against the rise of gambling in this country than the professional sports league. The NCAA does not have any official sportsbook partners. College athletes are not allowed to sports bet at all of any kind. Right. Even on professional sports. They've also, the NCAA, for the past at least year, maybe even longer, has been trying, lobbying states to stop allowing prop bets on college players.

[Ryan Knudsen]

Prop bets are basically a bet on anything other than the final outcome, like the number of three pointers that'll be made in a game or whether or not there'll be overtime or how specific players will perform. For example, someone could bet $10 that a player will score more than 15 points or that they'll score less than that. These kinds of bets are extremely popular, both in pro and college sports, and they make the ncaa, the association that oversees college sports, extremely worried. Here's NCAA president Charlie Baker in a video about this case.

[NCAA President Charlie Baker]

The NCAA has the largest integrity monitoring program in the world, but we still need regulators and gaming companies to eliminate collegiate prop bets, especially on first half unders.

[Ryan Knudsen]

First half unders, that's betting that the score will come in lower than expected in the first half, like what happened in that Robert Morris game.

[NCAA President Charlie Baker]

That's why today I sent a letter to the state gaming commissions urging them to ban these bets. The gaming companies can also do this right now and take them off their platforms. This is the right thing to do. To better protect athletes and our games.

[Ryan Knudsen]

The NCAA has called on some states to outlaw prop bets on college athletes. Some states have agreed, but many still allow them.

[Jared Diamond]

But it's an uphill battle because these sportsbooks love these other bets. They love the props, they love these parlays and all these things like this. That's because they're suckers bets, if we're being honest. Right. It's, they're great margins for the sports books, so they're not inclined to stop offering them again. So really you're not going to get anywhere with the sports books. Right. Your best chance is with the regulators.

[Ryan Knudsen]

So it's the beginning of March Madness, one of my favorite times of the year. Do you think that there's a chance that in this tournament that some moments or some first halves or some outcomes even could be fixed by the players in a scandal like this, I think

[Jared Diamond]

it's impossible to rule it out. And that's the problem. These are the guys we know about. That's the problem. That is the problem with all of this. These are giant business that bring in billions of dollars a year. But what's interesting about them is they are completely predicated. The entire business completely relies on one assumption, one sort of given truth, which is the product is genuine.

[Ryan Knudsen]

The players are going to go out there and play as hard as they can to win and represent their school.

[Jared Diamond]

That is genuine competition. That it is not wwe.

[Ryan Knudsen]

Now, across the world of sports, people are starting to doubt that it is

[Jared Diamond]

real in the gambling world. Suddenly we've come to realize that what we thought was this sort of accepted truth is an incredibly fragile thing. And it's teetering right now. And the reason I know it's teetering is you go on social media on any NFL Sunday, somebody drops a pass or fumbles the ball. What are all the tweets? Oh, he must have had that on the take. Did he have money on that? Did he really fumble that on purpose?

[Ryan Knudsen]

Or this decision to slide before getting tackled or go out of bounds here five yards short of. This was a huge deal in this particular betting market.

[Jared Diamond]

Right? Look, probably nothing is going on, but just the thought, just the thought creeping into your mind as a fan, it risks bringing down the entire industry. And that's the problem with watching this NCAA tournament, right? We would like to just turn off our brain and just get into the madness, right, of seeing, you know, whatever, whatever state upsetting Villanova. Villanova good. This year upsetting UConn. UConn's good. That's what we want to believe. But at least for me, as someone that's now been writing about covering sports gambling for now over two years, I have trouble watching them, keeping this out of my mind. I can't watch someone make a mistake in a sporting event now and without thinking to myself, wait a minute. And that's the problem.

[Ryan Knudsen]

That's all for today. Wednesday, March 18. The Journal is a co production of Spotify and the Wall Street Journal. Additional reporting in this episode by Louise Radnofsky. Thanks for listening. See you tomorrow. Do you. Do you want to bet on whether I can spin this basketball. My finger.

[Jared Diamond]

I. I don't bet as a rule because I know too much, but if I did bet, I would not take. I would bet against you. I have to be honest. I just won.

[Ryan Knudsen]

Well, I didn't say in how many attempts.

[Jared Diamond]

We had to be more specific. Very good stuff.

[Ryan Knudsen]

All right, thanks, Jared. Really appreciate it.

[Jared Diamond]

You got it.

[Ryan Knudsen]

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