Former NBA star Shaquille O’Neal recently told a story about a bookie admitting to him that multiple referees were betting on games.
On an episode of The Big Podcast, O’Neal told co-host Adam Lefkoe about the time he met a bookie at a bar during his playing days. There, O’Neal got a glimpse into just how much sports betting had infiltrated the league.
“We’re somewhere and I’m sitting at a bar, and a guy comes,” O’Neal said. “And the guy’s polite. He says, ‘Shaq, you probably don’t wanna sit here.’ I say, ‘Why?’ He says, ‘I’m one of the biggest bookies in the world and people know me and I know want you to…’ I said, ‘Oh cool, but you ain’t gotta worry about me.’
“So we start talking and I said, ‘Hey, you get players?’ He said, ‘No, you guys make too much money. I get referees.’ That’s what he says. And then, a couple years after that, the whole thing broke.”
In 2007, former referee Tim Donaghy was revealed to have been involved in a gambling scheme. Federal investigators determined he bet on games that he was working and used his position as a ref to control the point spread. Donaghy claimed he wasn’t alone