I don't care about the NBA and I don't watch it, but this is a huge deal for any pro sports league. They have a referee with a gambling problem that got in over his head and got squeezed by the mob. The ref (allegedly) started betting on his own games and affecting at least the point spreads.

That is the stuff of movie scripts, not real life. The NBA is in deep doo-doo.

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/news/story?id=2943095

ahaha. and the MLB thought pete Rose was bad!

seriosuly though, do you think maybe many people do this sort of thing and only a few get caught?

You'd hope not. This is right up there with the Black Sox, maybe even worse, since the offender is a supposed to be an impartial official.

It'll be interesting to see what all the pro leagues do to add safety measures to prevent this in the future. Yearly background checks? Polygraphs?

This scandal could be crippling for the NBA, but with Barry Bonds nearing the record and the Michael Vick fiasco in the news everyday too, those stories are playing damage control for the NBA, IMO. I believe betting in sports is still more prevalent than you would imagine, but I find it appalling that this came from an official.

Now we know that the Suns had a legitimate argument for the terrible officiating solely from Donaghy in the last quarter of their game against the Spurs in the playoffs this year which led to a suspension for Amare Stoudemire and fines for a couple players... http://sportswrap.berecruited.com/2007/07/...u-be-the-judge/