Twenty-six people have been charged in the United States with rigged sports betting in American college basketball and professional basketball in China, American judicial authorities announced Thursday.
This is the latest scandal to shake the world of basketball in the United States, after the indictment in October, in two separate cases of illegal gambling, of several figures of the prestigious NBA.
According to the indictment before a Philadelphia court, made public Thursday, the facts date back to 2022, when former Chicago Bulls player Antonio Blakeney, playing with the Jiangsu Dragons, in the Chinese championship (CBA), allegedly agreed to let points slip away to make gains in rigged bets in China.
In April 2023, at the end of the CBA season, one of the 26 accused, a major sports bettor, deposited approximately $200,000 in cash corresponding to the proceeds of these fixed matches in a storage unit belonging to Antonio Blakeney in Florida, according to the same source.
Antonio Blakeney, targeted in another procedure, is not one of the 26 accused.
This operation having “proved profitable”, the accused and their accomplices then turned to the NCAA, explained Thursday at a press conference federal prosecutor David Metcalf, describing “a massive scam”.
During the 2023-2024 and 2024-2025 NCAA seasons, they bribed dozens of players from more than 17 teams to fix around 30 games in total, according to the indictment.
The amount of bribes typically ranged from $10,000 to $30,000 per game for each of the players involved, generating a total of millions of dollars in winnings for the organizers of these rigged bets.
The accused face up to five years in prison, or even twenty years for those charged with financial fraud, according to judicial authorities.
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