Inside the NCAA point-shaving scandal and why it was so hard to catch
Federal prosecutors say a sprawling, international point-shaving scheme corrupted NCAA Division I men’s basketball games and professional contests in China, exploiting one of the most difficult betting markets in sports to police aka point spreads.
The case, United States v. Smith et al., was unsealed on Thursday (January 14), in federal court in Philadelphia. Prosecutors say that 26 people were involved in a long-running scheme that included bribery tied to sporting events, wire fraud, conspiracy, and helping others carry out the alleged crimes. Authorities emphasize that these are only allegations, and that every defendant is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty in court.
At a news conference, David Metcalf, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, described the case as “the criminal corruption of collegiate athletics.”
According to the indictment reviewed by ReadWrite, the scheme allegedly kicked off in 2022 in China’s Basketball Association before later spilling into U.S. college basketball. Prosecutors claim that professional bettors Marves Fairley and Shane Hennen brought in former NBA and LSU standout Antonio Blakeney, who was playing for the Jiangsu Dragons at the time, and persuaded him to intentionally underperform so they could take advantage of betting lines.
Today's news shines a light on issues in the sports betting ecosystem. We have to protect our athletes and our games. pic.twitter.com/P9bKeORRqr
— Charlie Baker (@CharlieBakerMA) January 15, 2026
The NCAA said the federal case matches up with integrity issues it had already been tracking internally. In a statement, NCAA President Charlie Baker said: “Protecting competition integrity is of the utmost importance for the NCAA. We are thankful for law enforcement agencies working to detect and combat integrity issues and match manipulation in college sports.”
Why point spreads are so hard to police
“Point spreads are among the most challenging markets to monitor for manipulation,” said Matt Bresler, founder and CEO of sports data company Odditt, in an interview with ReadWrite.
“It’s not the size of a bet that makes it suspicious; it’s the abnormality relative to previous activity and event/betting market popularity.” – Matt Bresler, Odditt CEO
Unlike niche or exotic bets, point spreads are the most liquid and highest-volume markets in global sports betting. Bettors aren’t just betting on who wins anymore. They’re also betting on the margin of victory, often with very large sums of money. When you factor in the natural unpredictability of basketball, where surprising outcomes happen all the time, questionable activity can easily get lost in the background.
The indictment draws attention to this challenge, pointing out that even when players allegedly tried to shave points, it didn’t always work. Manipulation doesn’t always lead to neat or obvious outcomes, which makes spotting it much harder.
What actually triggers red flags
According to Bresler, integrity monitoring systems function as “the front-end alerting system for the entire industry.”
It is not raw bet size that raises alarms. Instead, monitors look for abnormal behavior relative to expectations, including what is typical for a bettor, a game, or a market of that size.
“Without having direct access to the typical betting volumes for similar games not affected by the scandal, and without knowledge of when anomalous behavior was first flagged, we can’t really say if there was any failure or delay in the oversight and response, or if this is a product of proper safeguards already being in place.” – Matt Bresler, Odditt CEO
If someone who usually makes small bets suddenly tries to put down tens of thousands of dollars on a little-known game, or if several bettors all pile six-figure wagers onto the same obscure college matchup at the same time, that can set off alarms. Sportsbooks send those alerts to integrity monitors, who strip out identifying details and share the information with other operators and regulators using standardized reports. From there, the combined data is passed along to investigators.
Often, sportsbooks are the first to spot something odd, flagging unusual activity and checking it against what is happening across the wider market. Legal betting operators also work closely with leagues and independent integrity firms, creating feedback loops that help uncover behavior that might otherwise fly under the radar.
Because some bets in this case reportedly ran into the hundreds of thousands of dollars on games that do not usually attract much attention, it is fair to wonder why red flags did not go up sooner. But Bresler cautioned that without a full picture of normal betting patterns and precise timelines, it is impossible to know whether the system failed or whether the safeguards actually worked the way they were supposed to.
Where betting integrity systems fell short in the NCAA point-shaving scheme
One major structural gap stands out, and it comes down to geography.
According to the allegations, the scheme took shape overseas, starting with games in Chinese leagues that drew little attention from U.S.-based integrity monitors. International betting operators do not share data with American regulators or monitoring firms the way domestic sportsbooks do, which creates blind spots where manipulation can grow without much oversight.
The operation likely became much easier to detect once it moved into U.S.-regulated markets, where data sharing, monitoring, and compliance requirements are generally far more robust. The case points out the potential need for international integrity monitors that can coordinate betting data and enforcement across borders.
Rethinking NCAA betting restrictions amid point-shaving issues
The scandal also lands amid ongoing debates over how college sports betting should be regulated.
There is a widespread assumption that the rise in betting scandals is driven by the legalization of sports betting in the U.S. since 2018. Bresler argues that this view oversimplifies the issue. “As telescopes increase in ability, we discover new stars, but nobody suggests that the advent of the telescope created those stars,” he said. Legalization, in this view, has expanded detection as much as opportunity.
The NCAA has pushed for bans on college player proposition bets, particularly wagers on poor individual performance. Its recent data deal with Genius Sports includes a prohibition on high-risk player prop bets. Some states already go further, banning betting on in-state college teams outside of tournaments and prohibiting college player props entirely. The NBA has also implemented restrictions on certain prop bets involving lower-salaried players.
However, this case did not hinge on obscure or exotic prop bets. It focused on point spreads, the most basic and widely used betting market, and one that cannot realistically be banned.
Limiting or banning regulated markets does not make betting disappear. It simply pushes demand elsewhere. When restrictions go too far, betting activity can shift offshore, where there is no coordination with leagues, regulators, or law enforcement. The American Gaming Association estimates that Americans wager close to $84 billion each year with unregulated online sportsbooks and bookies, markets that generate no integrity alerts at all. While that figure is well below pre-regulation estimates, it also suggests that legalization has already brought a large portion of betting into environments where monitoring exists.
This case was uncovered in part because regulated operators are plugged into integrity monitoring systems. If the same manipulation had taken place entirely offshore, there may have been no alerts, no reporting, and no investigation at all.
What comes next
Experts say that enforcement alone is not enough and that prevention will have to keep pace. Better cross-border data sharing is increasingly seen as unavoidable, especially since schemes can move so easily from international leagues into U.S. markets.
There is also likely to be a bigger push to educate college athletes. Younger players, who often lack financial literacy and do not fully grasp the long-term consequences, remain particularly vulnerable to recruitment by sophisticated betting operations.
As sports psychology expert Andy Lane told ReadWrite, gambling-related corruption in sports is complicated, but it is not new. What is new is access. Online platforms and mobile apps have removed many of the traditional barriers, putting temptation directly into athletes’ pockets.
The NCAA point-shaving case points out a core tension in modern sports betting. Regulation does not remove risk, but it does create visibility.
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