🏈 Gambling in college sports is a big worry

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Opinions vary on how often games are manipulated due to point spreads

"It's almost a perfect storm for criminal conspiracy when you've got young athletes with uncertain futures who may be financially vulnerable and, the rationale would be, they're not going to be really hurting anybody if they shave a few points or lose by a few more. There's a lot of potential for illegal bookies or even legal sports books to make a lot of money from this."


Justin Wolfers, an associate professor of business and public policy at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School, studied 44,120 NCAA Division I men's basketball games and point spreads from 1989 to 2005. He concluded in a 2006 research paper that 1 percent, or nearly 500 games, involved "gambling-related corruption" and suggested about 6 percent of strongly-favored teams had players willing to manipulate their performance.


Wolfers based his conclusions in part from statistical analysis showing that teams favored by 12 points had too many 10- and 11-point wins and too few 13- and 14-point wins. He cautioned his study is not actual evidence of point shaving.


"There's no proof in such forensic statistics, merely suggestive patterns," Wolfers said by e-mail. "But they were very suggestive."

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