Ex-NCAA players charged over basketball game rigging

• Federal prosecutors have named dozens of NCAA players and insiders as part of a federal probe
• Currently, 26 players are facing charges out of the 39 named by investigators
• The fixers started with the Chinese Basketball Association in 2023, but moved on to the NCAA

Federal prosecutors have brought charges against at least 26 people who are said to have contributed to and helped manipulate the outcomes of basketball games, in what is the latest high-profile sports betting scandal.

The latest complaint targets former NCAA players as well as others, with games fixed across the NCAA and the Chinese Basketball Association, prosecutors alleged in a statement released on Thursday.

NCAA in the crosshairs of federal prosecutors

US Attorney David Metcalf described the case as an international conspiracy and said that 15 of those named in the lawsuit played Division I NCAA basketball during the 2024-25 season, with five other players participating in the 2023-24 season.

The case revolves around a classic match-fixing scheme where players were offered bonuses if they agreed to underperform. The accused were the "fixers" or the people who reached out to athletes and tried to convince them to stumble in their play at precise moments of their games to help secure the outcome of higher-yield betting outcomes such as parlays and proposition wagers.

Their conspirators would place bets on those specific outcomes to secure a big payday, defrauding the bookmakers in the process. Interestingly, the fixers did not target the NCAA originally. They made tentative forays into the Chinese Basketball Association around 2023 and were supposedly successful.

This early success, though, emboldened them to pursue and exploit higher returns on their criminal activity, moving onto the NCAA. Shockingly, the scheme may have ensnared as many as 39 players from more than 17 different NCAA Division I men’s basketball teams, pointing to how widespread the issue was - and probably remains.

Students may have misunderstood the seriousness of the issue, got financial incentive

Prosecutors were also able to pinpoint the exact number of games that were supposedly rigged - at least 29, but there could have been more. As to why athletes did it, NCAA players are not paid by colleges, which argues that they are already paying for their scholarships, as well as offering them the opportunity to fast-track their career to pro sports.

The fixers, though, came with a payout of $10,000 - $30,000 per individual game, which could have been a deciding factor for student-athletes who may not have seen their transgression as too serious to begin with. Among those charged by prosecutors are prominent NCAA players, such as Simeon Cottle, Carlos Hart, Oumar Koureissi, and Camian Shell.

Match-fixing across the league was not thought to be too common, but the current revelations change that. The NCAA scandal comes in the wake of a major NBA corruption probe launched by the FBI, alleging various offenses by former and current staffers and players.

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