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Sports Betting: The All-Time Biggest Sports Betting Controversy

Richard Janvrin by Richard Janvrin, December 30, 2025

A man watching a game inside a Las Vegas sportsbook.

Over the last hundred years or so, there have been ample examples of the sports betting controversy that is gambling.

We have some scandals that date back to the early 1900s and some as recent as this year. Sports gambling scandals don’t only involve one or two sports. Instead, they span across all major professional leagues worldwide.

Below, I’ll examine seven of the most infamous sports betting scandals.

The 1919 Black Sox Scandal

Perhaps the most infamous sports betting controversy, the 1919 Black Sox refers to the Chicago White Sox during the 1919 World Series. In that series, eight White Sox players were accused of intentionally losing the championship series to the Cincinnati Reds. This was tied to organized crime, possibly to Arnold Rothstein, the kingpin of the Jewish Mob in New York City. That said, there’s no definitive proof he was involved.

The story says that on Sept. 18, 1919, White Sox player Chick Gandil met with Joe “Sport” Sullivan, a bookmaker in Boston, at Hotel Buckminster near Fenway Park.

There, plans were discussed to throw the series for $80,000, which is the equivalent of more than $1.5 million today.

In all, the eight players associated with the scandal included Eddie Cicotte, Oscar Felsch, Gandil, Joe Jackson, Fred McMullin, Charles Risberg, George Weaver, and Claude Williams.

They were all banned from baseball, and following this, a judge appointed the first-ever MLB commissioner to oversee the league.

This scandal is always mentioned whenever something happens in baseball, including one involving Shohei Ohtani’s interpreter, who stole nearly $17 million from the superstar to pay off his gambling debts.

Sports Gambling Scandals: Tim Donaghy

Donaghy was an NBA referee from 1994 to 2007, before he was sentenced to 15 months in prison after pleading guilty to federal counts of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and conspiracy to transmit wagering information across state lines.

On July 20, 2007, a story by Murray Weiss of the New York Post detailed an FBI investigation into an NBA referee, alleging that the referee bet on games and controlled the point spread.

Donaghy was revealed to be that referee, and it was revealed that he placed tens of thousands of dollars in bets during the 2005-06 and 2006–07 seasons.

This was one of the biggest modern sports gambling scandals.

Gambling Scandals In Sports: 1951 Kentucky Wildcats Point Shaving

Gambling scandals in sports aren’t just a recent thing.

In 1951, several point-shaving scandals occurred at once in college basketball, including one involving the Kentucky Wildcats, a prominent program.

It included several players for Kentucky’s 1948, 1949, and 1951 championship squads, including Ralph Beard, Alex Groza, and Dale Barnstable. They were arrested for their part in fixing an NIT game in 1949 against Loyola Chicago.

Manhattan District Attorney Frank Hogan said that up to eleven Kentucky games from 1948 to 1949 were manipulated. The three players arrested admitted to fixing three games and received suspended sentences, indefinite probation, and lifetime bans from the NBA. Groza and Beard also sold their stakes in the Indianapolis Olympians, an NBA team that lasted just from 1949 to 1953.

Kentucky eventually canceled its entire 1952-53 season.

Pete Rose and the MLB

One of the biggest gambling scandals in sports features MLB’s all-time hits leader.

Pete Rose’s MLB career began in 1963 with the Cincinnati Reds and continued there until 1978. He then spent time with the Philadelphia Phillies and Montreal Expos before returning to the Reds in 1984 as a player-manager.

He retired as a player in 1986, but stayed on as manager until 1989.

In 1989, he was under investigation after several betting slips were found at a restaurant in Ohio.

At this time, A. Bartlett Giamatti was named the commissioner and hired John Dowd, a lawyer, to investigate Rose.

His report found that Rose allegedly wagered on 52 Reds games in 1987, including at least $10,000 a day.

The report stated there was no evidence that Rose bet against the Reds.

Operation Slap Shot

“Operation Slap Shot” is the code name for an investigation by the New Jersey state police into an illegal gambling ring that spanned nationwide.

The operation went public on Feb. 6, 2006. It included an assistant coach for the Phoenix Coyotes, Rick Tocchet, a New Jersey State Trooper, James J. Harney, Wayne Gretzky’s wife, Janet Jones, and even then-Coyotes general manager, Michael Barnett.

Barnett admitted to betting on Super Bowl XL, which only furthered the sports betting controversy.

The investigation found that the organized sports betting ring processed more than 1,000 wagers for $1.7 million across 40 days.

Chauncey Billups, Terry Rozier, and More

If you were to Google “sports scandals recent,” you’d likely see the recent scandal involving Portland Trail Blazers head coach Chauncey Billups, Miami Heat player Terry Rozier, and former NBA player and coach Damon Jones.

This case is still reasonably fresh, but the early news on this sports gambling scandal includes the following:

  • Billups was allegedly involved with rigging underground poker games backed by the Mafia.
  • Rozier allegedly gave insider information to gamblers on seven games between March 2023 and March 2024. Rozier pleaded not guilty to conspiracy charges.
  • Jones provided insider information on players’ injury status, including LeBron James and Anthony Davis, while he was part of the Lakers’ coaching staff under Darvin Ham during the 2022-23 season. He’s also tied to the Mafia-led poker games.

These scandals all come at a time when there are numerous top NBA sportsbooks and the NBA has partnerships with numerous sports betting platforms.

That said, players and coaches leaking information to help bettors and themselves is much different than a regular citizen betting on their favorite team.

NBA Player Johntay Porter

Porter, the brother of Michael Porter Jr., was banned from the NBA for life in 2024 following an investigation involving sports betting.

Porter pleaded guilty in July 2024, admitting he had schemed to take himself out of games related to betting and involving prop wagers.

This all happened during his time with the Toronto Raptors. He provided information about his health before a game on March 20, the same day someone wagered $80,000 on one of his prop bets to go under.

He now faces up to around four years in prison and is part of one of the biggest gambling scandals in sports.

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