Latest NCAA Basketball Betting Scandal Shows Why Small Schools Represent Easy Prey

Last week’s bombshell announcement about yet another sports-betting scandal revealed how small colleges are more vulnerable to point-shaving operations.

Money changes everything, of course, and it’s radically altered the landscape on college campuses with Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL) deals, effectively creating the Haves and Have Nots.

The NCAA’s biggest basketball stars can command millions of dollars. Duke’s Cooper Flagg reportedly made $31 million during his only season of college competition last year.

Players at North Carolina A&T, about an hour away from Duke, reside in a different zip code, both literally and figuratively. In 2022, former A&T forward Duncan Powell became the first HBCU basketball player to have a jersey deal. Powell has now played for four schools over the past four years.

Notably, he committed to Georgetown after reportedly landing a $750K NIL deal, but later de-committed and ended up at Providence. Powell’s well-traveled path has become commonplace, with top NCAA basketball and football players annually hitting the portal, due in large part to bigger NIL paydays.

We’re all for student-athletes being compensated, but the introduction of NIL created a volatile environment. It’s no surprise, then, that players at smaller schools are more susceptible to bribes. Former North Carolina A&T basketball player Camian Shell was one of 26 individuals named in last week’s indictment.

Shell was charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud and cited on a related bribery charge in sports contests. He is alleged to have underperformed in the first half of a game played in Greensboro on Feb. 29, 2024, against Towson University, with fixers coordinating $458,000 in bets.

Players are alleged to have received between $10,000 to $30,000 in the most recent point shaving scandal. That’s lunch money for the biggest stars in college sports, but significant for athletes competing on the margins.

Here is the full list of schools involved:

• Abilene Christian
• Alabama State
• Buffalo
• Coppin State
• DePaul
• Eastern Michigan
• Fordham
• Kennesaw State
• LaSalle
• New Orleans
• Nicholls State
• North Carolina A&T
• Northwestern State
• Robert Morris
• Saint Louis
• Southern Miss
• Tulane

Prosecutors alleged in the indictment that the fixers targeted athletes “for whom the bribe payments would meaningfully supplement or exceed legitimate NIL opportunities.”

Don’t expect this to be the last major betting scandal to target mid-major programs, either. Declan Hill, an associate professor at the University of New Haven and a longtime investigator of sports corruption, credited investigators in this case but believes most point-shaving activities still go undetected.

“They’re still missing most of the stuff,” he said. “Those monitoring the betting patterns help some of the time, but they really only catch the stupid fixes.”

Hill also told CasinoBeats that sophisticated networks “tend to avoid outcomes that produce dramatic market movement. Instead, they focus on marginal edges that can be exploited repeatedly over time.”

“It depends on how sophisticated the fixers are,” he said. “The really good ones go long term. They go underneath the algorithm. They take the profits. They’ll fix the underdog, they’re not going to fix a favorite, because if you fix a favorite, the odds go crazy.”

Expect things to get worse before they get better for bettors worried about the integrity of college competition.