College basketball players secretly shaved points for gamblers, from the 1951 CCNY scandal to the 1978-79 Boston College fix
Where the evidence lands: SupportedThat college basketball players have secretly conspired with gamblers to control the margins of games, deliberately missing shots, committing turnovers or easing off on defense so that their team would fail to cover the betting spread, in exchange for cash payments, and that this has happened not as an isolated rumor but as a recurring, organized crime across multiple decades of the sport.
Believed by: Universally accepted as historical fact by sports historians, journalists and the courts; the disputed part is not whether past fixes happened but how common point-shaving still is in the modern game
Why people believe it
- The record is genuinely damning, so belief here is mostly warranted. When celebrated national champions and future pros turn out to have taken mob money, it teaches a durable lesson that the games we watch can be manipulated, and that lesson generalizes, sometimes too far.
- The point spread makes a fix feel plausible and low-risk. A player does not have to lose to shave points, only to win by less than expected, which is subtle enough that fans can imagine it happening without anyone noticing, and occasionally it did.
- Organized crime gives the story a ready-made villain. The Boston College case, with Henry Hill and the Goodfellas connection, folds neatly into the popular image of the mob reaching into everyday institutions, which makes it memorable and easy to believe of other games too.
- Every so often a new case is proven, from 1951 to 1961 to 1994, which keeps suspicion alive and lends credibility to the broader, unproven claim that fixing is common. Real recurrences make it hard to dismiss the possibility out of hand.
- Money and youth are a combustible mix in the public mind. Unpaid amateurs playing in front of huge gambling markets strikes many people as an obvious temptation, so a story about players cashing in feels intuitively true even before the evidence is in.
What's still unexplained
- How much point-shaving went undetected? The proven cases were uncovered by tips, informants or sharp-eyed bookmakers, which raises the honest question of how many smaller or better-hidden fixes were never caught, without licensing the leap to assuming the sport is broadly rigged.
- Has the explosion of legal sports betting since 2018 raised or lowered the risk? More money and more markets create more incentive to fix, but far more sophisticated betting-integrity surveillance now watches for exactly the anomalies that exposed earlier schemes.
- Where is the line between a genuine bad game and a shaved one? Because a subtle fix looks like ordinary poor play, individual games short of a confession or betting-pattern evidence remain hard to adjudicate, which is why proven cases matter more than suspicion.
Point by point
The claim: In 1951 numerous college players took money from gamblers to control the margins of games.
What the record shows: This is established in the public record. New York District Attorney Frank Hogan's office documented a scheme that reached 32 players and dozens of games across many states and multiple seasons. City College of New York players Ed Roman, Al Roth and Ed Warner were among those arrested, and a judge handed down jail sentences to several players and gamblers in late 1951. The NBA's refusal to draft implicated players is itself a documented consequence.
The claim: Boston College players shaved points for organized-crime figures during the 1978-79 season.
What the record shows: A federal jury convicted player Rick Kuhn, gamblers Rocco and Anthony Perla, Paul Mazzei and gangster James Burke of conspiracy tied to the fix, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit upheld the convictions in United States v. Burke, 700 F.2d 70 (2d Cir. 1983). Kuhn was sentenced to ten years, later reduced to 28 months. The case surfaced only because informant Henry Hill described it to investigators after being turned in unrelated cases.
The claim: Not everyone accused of shaving points was guilty; the crime was real but the net was not always accurate.
What the record shows: This caution is borne out by the record and cuts in the honest direction. Boston College teammate Jim Sweeney testified for the government and was neither charged nor granted immunity. Ernie Cobb was indicted in 1983 but found not guilty at trial in 1984 and has long maintained his innocence. Documented convictions, acquittals and denials must be reported as what they are, not blurred together.
The claim: Point-shaving was not confined to the distant past; it recurred in the modern game.
What the record shows: The 1994 Arizona State case confirms this. Student bookmaker Benny Silman pleaded guilty to bribing ASU players Stevin Smith and Isaac Burton to keep the team from covering the spread in several games, and Smith and Silman both served federal prison time. The scheme was uncovered in part because Las Vegas bookmakers noticed unusual betting patterns, a reminder that a fix leaves a trail.
The claim: Because these fixes happened, college basketball as a whole is rigged.
What the record shows: This over-reads the evidence. The proven cases are specific conspiracies involving named players, particular games and identifiable gamblers, each exposed and prosecuted. There is no established basis for a blanket claim that the sport is broadly or currently fixed. Modern integrity monitoring, tighter betting surveillance and the very fact that past schemes were caught argue against, not for, an undetected league-wide fix. The documented record proves point-shaving can and did happen; it does not prove that any given game today is crooked.
Timeline
- 1945A Brooklyn College fixing case gives an early public warning that college basketball, then a huge draw at New York's Madison Square Garden, is vulnerable to gamblers. The point spread, a betting line that rewards controlling the margin rather than the winner, makes a subtle fix possible without a player having to lose outright.
- 1951-01Manhattan College player Junius Kellogg is approached to shave points and refuses, then reports the offer. His tip sets New York District Attorney Frank Hogan's office onto a much larger scheme than anyone expected.
- 1951-02-18Hogan announces the arrests of City College of New York stars Ed Roman, Al Roth and Ed Warner. CCNY had just completed a storied 1950 season, winning both the NIT and NCAA tournaments, which made the fall from grace national news.
- 1951The investigation widens to Long Island University, New York University, Manhattan, Bradley, Toledo and other programs. Long Island University star Sherman White is arrested the day after being named a national player of the year. Prosecutors ultimately tie 32 players to the fixing of dozens of games across many states.
- 1951-11Judge Saul Streit begins sentencing players and gamblers. Several players receive jail time; fixer Salvatore Sollazzo receives the longest sentence. The NBA declines to draft players implicated in the scandal, ending pro hopes for a generation of standouts.
- 1961A second wave of point-shaving cases, again investigated out of New York, implicates players at dozens of schools and centers on gambler Jack Molinas, showing the 1951 scandal had not been a one-off.
- 1978-1979Gamblers Rocco and Anthony Perla recruit Boston College player Rick Kuhn, a high-school friend of Rocco, to shave points during the Eagles' season. Through associate Paul Mazzei the scheme reaches Lucchese crime family associate Henry Hill and gangster James Burke.
- 1980-1981After Henry Hill turns government informant following unrelated drug and robbery cases, he describes the Boston College fix to investigators and to Sports Illustrated. Federal prosecutors bring charges against Kuhn, the Perlas, Mazzei and Burke.
- 1994Arizona State guard Stevin 'Hedake' Smith and teammate Isaac Burton shave points in several games at the direction of student bookmaker Benny Silman. Las Vegas sportsbooks flag the abnormal betting, and federal convictions follow in the late 1990s, showing the crime persisted into the modern era.
From the case file
The actual records: declassified, released, or leaked. We link straight to each document in its official archive, so you never have to take our word for it. Read the originals yourself.
Other case files that cite the same sources
Supported. Point-shaving in college basketball is not a theory: it is a documented criminal record spanning multiple eras, with arrests, guilty pleas, jury convictions and lifetime bans. The 1951 New York investigation established that dozens of players from CCNY, LIU, NYU and other schools took money to control the margin of victory, and the 1978-79 Boston College case, exposed through mob informant Henry Hill, ended in federal convictions upheld on appeal. Rated as the specific claim that players have deliberately manipulated scores for gamblers, this is substantiated. What is not established, and what this file separates out, is any blanket claim that college basketball as a whole is broadly rigged today.
Sources
- 1.1951 college basketball point-shaving scandal, Wikipedia (2026)
- 2.Explosion: 1951 scandals threaten college hoops, ESPN Classic
- 3.1978-79 Boston College basketball point-shaving scandal, Wikipedia (2026)
- 4.Purdum: 'The worst fix ever' - chronicling the 1978-79 BC point-shaving scandal, ESPN (2014)
- 5.ESPN Looks Back On Boston College Point Shaving Scandal, And A Player Speaks Out, Forbes (2014)
- 6.Kuhn Gets 10-Year Sentence In BC Point-Shaving Case, The Washington Post (1982)
- 7.Stevin Smith, Wikipedia (2026)
- 8.Creating a 'fix': The story of point-shaving at ASU, Cronkite News (Arizona PBS) (2018)
- 9.United States v. James Burke, Anthony Perla, Rocco Perla, and Richard Kuhn, 700 F.2d 70 (2d Cir. 1983), Justia (1983)
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