20 Indicted in College Basketball, Chinese Basketball Association Sports Betting Scandal

• Twenty individuals have been indicted in a point-shaving schemed involving NCAA basketball and the Chinese Basketball Association
• According to the indictment, more than 29 NCAA basketball games were fixed through bribes of collegiate players
• The federal indictment was unsealed Thursday in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania

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According to a federal indictment unsealed Thursday in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, 20 individuals have been indicted for their alleged roles in fixing NCAA basketball games and Chinese Basketball Association games.

A number of media outlets reported on the story, including both ESPN and Yahoo Sports, which detailed a wide-ranging point-shaving scheme which saw individuals offering bribes to athletes in both basketball leagues to underperform in games.

Bribes ranged from $10,000 to $30,000 for athletes.

Point-Shaving Scheme

The 20 individuals named in the indictment allegedly bribed 39 NCAA athletes on more than 17 NCAA Division I teams, leading to more than 29 games being fixed. According to the indictment, 15 of the individuals in the scheme played NCAA basketball in either the 2023-2024 or 2024-2025 seasons.

“To capitalize on this scheme, the fixers made wagers totaling millions of dollars, generating substantial proceeds for the fixers and the players who collectively received hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribe payments for fixing their teams’ basketball games. The point-shaving schemed corrupted the integrity of NCAA college sports contests and the sportsbooks accepting wagers on those contest and caused sportsbooks and individuals sports bettors to suffer financial losses,” according to the indictment.

Two of the defendants, Shane Hennen and Marves Fairley, were also included in recent federal indictments for a sports betting scandal that included Chauncey Billups and Terry Rozier.

NCAA basketball athletes Cedquavious Hunter and Dyquavian Short were both named in this indictment. The athletes played for the University of New Orleans Privateers and were previously found to manipulate game performances for the purpose of financially benefitting themselves and others in seven games from December 2024 through January 2025.

One of the men named in the indictment is former NBA player Antonio Blakeney, who appeared in 76 games for the Chicago Bulls from 2017 to 2019. He is alleged to accept a bribe while playing for the Jiangsu Dragons team in a March 6, 2023, matchup against the Guandong Southern Tigers. Blakeney, who averaged 32 points per game during the season, only scored 11 points in the Dragons eventual blowout loss.

The Tigers were favored by 11.5 points in the game and defeated the Dragons by a score of 127-96. Hennen and Fairley, and others working for the men, placed large wagers on the Tigers, including at least $198,300 in bets with BetRivers Sportsbook at Rivers Casino in Philadelphia, according to the indictment.

Blakeney also allegedly reported to Hennen and Fairley when he would not be playing in several other Jiangsu Dragons games, and informed the defendants of several other Dragons teammates who would accept bribes to underperform.

NCAA Players Recruited to Shave Points

Hennen and Fairley, plus defendants Jalen Smith, Roderick Winkler, and Alberto Laureano, also allegedly recruited NCAA players to accept bribe payments in exchange for influencing outcomes of games. The fixers would attempt to recruit several athletes on a team to ensure the schemes would succeed.

After successfully bribing athletes, the individuals would then place bets through sportsbooks, wagering against the team of the players they had bribed to manipulate their performances.

The following former NCAA athletes were included in the indictment:

• Arlando Arnold
• Simeon Cottle
• Kevin Cross
• Bradley Ezewiro
• Shawn Fulcher
• Carlos Hart
• Markeese Hastings
• Cedquavious Hunter
• Oumar Koureissi
• Alberto Laureano
• Da’Sean Nelson
• Demond Robinson
• Camian Shell
• Dyquavion Short
• Airion Simmons
• Jalen Smith
• Jalen Terry

NCAA President Charlie Baker released a statement this morning regarding the indictments. Baker reported that protecting competition integrity is of the “utmost importance for the NCAA.”

“The pattern of college basketball game integrity conduct revealed by law enforcement today is not entirely new information to the NCAA. Through helpful collaboration and with industry regulators, we have finished or have open investigations into almost all of the teams in today’s indictment. Our enforcement staff has opened sports betting integrity investigations into approximately 40 student-athletes from 20 schools over the past year. While some of the investigations are ongoing, 11 student-athletes from seven schools were recently found to have bet on their own performances, shared information with known bettors, and/or engaged in game manipulation to collect on bets they ― or others ― placed. This behavior resulted in a permanent loss of NCAA eligibility for all of them,” Baker said.

He noted that 13 student-athletes from eight schools were found to have failed to cooperate in the sports betting integrity investigation by providing false or misleading information, failing to provide relevant documentation and/or refusing to be interviewed by the enforcement staff.

This story will continue to be updated