“Don’t Score Any More Points”: Inside the Unprecedented Gambling Crisis That Sees College Players Paid $5,000 to Lose and Threatens to Rig the WNBA
The bedrock of competitive sport is integrity—the belief that what you are watching is a genuine contest where the outcome is decided solely by effort, skill, and chance. That foundation is now crumbling beneath the weight of an unprecedented, full-blown crisis fueled by the explosive growth of legalized sports betting. What began as whispers of an athlete here or there making a foolish wager has erupted into a staggering multi-school scandal involving systematic game-fixing, brazen coordination during live play, and players reportedly accepting thousands of dollars to ensure their own teams lose.

The severity of the situation has been laid bare by the NCAA’s decision to permanently ban six players across three separate schools: Arizona State, University of New Orleans (UNO), and Mississippi Valley State (MVSU). Their crimes? Not just betting, but actively manipulating the performance of themselves and their teammates to hit pre-determined prop bets. This crisis extends far beyond the college court, with chilling implications for professional leagues like the NBA, MLB, and, perhaps most vulnerably, the WNBA, where reduced investigative scrutiny could make it the next target for corruption.

This is not an isolated incident; it is a contagion, and the details emerging from the NCAA’s investigations are shocking enough to make any fan question every close game they watch.

The Audacity of the Fix: “Don’t Score Any More Points”
The most stunning revelation of the entire scandal comes from the University of New Orleans (UNO), where three players—Quavius Hunter, Daquavian Short, and Jaman Vincent—were found to be involved in a scheme so audacious it defies belief.

The fix was not subtle; it was coordinated during a live game. According to the NCAA’s findings, a student athlete overheard the three players discussing a third party placing a bet for them on a December 28, 2024, game. The level of brazenness peaked during a timeout late in that game [04:59]. A student athlete reported that during the huddle, one of the players involved in the scheme actually “instructed him not to score any more points” so that their bets could hit [04:31].

Imagine the scene: a high-stakes, competitive environment where players are supposed to be focused on strategy, only to have a teammate deliver a direct order to underperform—an instruction to commit fraud against the game, their coaches, and the fans—right there on the bench. The audacity to coordinate a game fix in front of teammates and cameras demonstrates a terrifying level of confidence and disregard for integrity.

The evidence did not stop there. Text messages recovered from Jaman Vincent’s phone showed him literally telling people to bet on the game because “we plan to throw it” [05:33]. Who leaves that kind of explosive evidence on their own device? What is even more disturbing is that this wasn’t a one-off attempt. The investigation found that the group tried to manipulate seven games in total [05:47], meaning multiple matches where fans bought tickets, placed their own wagers, and yet the outcome was subtly being dictated by the greed of a few players. This scheme was about rigging the outcome of the game itself, a betrayal of the purest form of the sport.

The Data Spies: Inside Information and Lying for Prop Bets
At the center of the Arizona State scandal was BJ Freeman, not a benchwarmer trying to make a quick buck, but the team’s second-leading scorer, averaging nearly 14 points per game [02:08]. Freeman’s scheme was sophisticated, focused primarily on exploiting the lucrative market of player prop bets—wagers placed on an individual player’s performance statistics, such as points, assists, or turnovers.

Freeman became an inside data spy. He was feeding non-public, specific information to a third-party bettor, Mikuel Robinson, and his then-girlfriend. He would tell them exactly what to bet on, specifically advising them to bet the “over” on his points, three-pointers, assists, and turnovers [03:17], and then attempting to hit those numbers during the games [19:10]. The motivation was simple: profit from his own stat line.

When confronted by investigators, Freeman’s response was a masterclass in denial. He lied about everything [03:30]. He denied sharing any information and even denied having a Daily Fantasy Sports (DFS) account, despite the account being in his name, linked to his email, and containing his deposit history [03:36]. His attempts at a cover-up extended to deleting messages and then planning to transfer to UCF, likely assuming he had escaped the consequences [03:55]. His actions weren’t accidental; they were deliberate attempts to manipulate the market and conceal his criminal behavior. The NCAA stated that this lack of cooperation—providing false or misleading information—is part of the ethical conduct violation that triggered the permanent ban [15:01].

The $5,000 Bribe and the Unconnected Contagion
The third school involved, Mississippi Valley State (MVSU), exposed yet another, unconnected, and equally chilling dimension of the crisis: direct bribery to lose.

The MVSU investigation, which started with a January 6th loss to Alabama A&M, uncovered game-fixing that stretched back to Christmas week [07:25]. Text messages and evidence revealed that players Donovan Sanders and Alvin Strand were paid to ensure MVSU lost that game [08:48]. They were being bribed by outside bettors to intentionally throw a game for their own team, receiving as much as $5,000 for the fix [06:47].

The bettors, who were in constant contact, were literally calling the shots. Sanders was overheard on the phone with an unknown third party discussing throwing the game. In a desperate move, he even asked a teammate to participate in the call so that the bettor could be sure a second player was “in on it too” [08:18]. When that teammate refused to alter his performance, Sanders immediately texted him after the game, telling him to delete all the messages [08:29]. This sequence of events leaves no doubt about the players’ full awareness of their criminal actions.

What makes the MVSU case, and the overall scandal, far scarier than a single coordinated plot is that the NCAA confirmed the schemes at Arizona State, UNO, and MVSU were unconnected [15:33]. This wasn’t a massive, organized crime ring dictating terms; it was three separate groups of players, across the country, each independently stumbling onto the same scam on their own [15:48]. This demonstrates just how obvious and accessible the opportunity to fix games has become, a chilling indictment of the current sports-gambling environment.

The Hypocrisy Machine: Why the NCAA is Fueling the Crisis
While the NCAA is rightly banning the six players involved, the organization itself is a key part of the problem, engaged in a staggering level of hypocrisy [09:08].

As of November 1st, the NCAA has decided to allow college athletes to bet on professional sports [09:54]. The organization that just ended six careers for gambling is now actively normalizing the behavior it claims to abhor, teaching young athletes how to use betting apps, understand odds, and place wagers. This creates a deeply conflicting message: “Go ahead and gamble… just not on this sport.” It is a deliberate action that gets players “in the habit” of betting, setting the stage for those with a desperate need for cash to eventually cross the line into betting on their own games [10:14].

Further compounding the issue is the fact that the entire sports media ecosystem is financially intertwined with the gambling industry. Broadcasts are saturated with ads, podcasts are sponsored by DraftKings and FanDuel, and even major networks have their own betting platforms [09:23]. The industry acts outraged when players follow the very behavior they are constantly being encouraged to adopt, essentially pushing athletes toward gambling and then punishing them when they go too far [10:43].

NCAA President Charlie Baker has, at least, acknowledged the most volatile trigger: player prop bets [16:56]. Prop bets create the perfect incentive for corruption, allowing players to directly profit from underperforming. A player can bet on themselves to score under a certain number of points, have an “off night,” and collect the money—an almost untraceable form of game manipulation [17:52]. This is not just a threat to integrity; it is a threat to the athletes themselves, as Baker has lobbied to eliminate prop bets due to the resulting online harassment, death threats, and abuse from gamblers who lose money when a player misses an over [18:30]. The system we have built is one where adults are harassing teenagers over gambling losses.

The Spreading Contagion: Why the WNBA is Most Vulnerable
What is happening in college basketball is a mirror for professional sports, which is already dealing with its own high-profile cases of corruption [11:02].

In the NBA, figures like Chanty Bilips, Terry Rosier, and Damon Jones have been implicated in illegal gambling schemes involving fixing games and rigging prop bets [11:49]. In Major League Baseball, Emanuel Cly and Luis Ortiz were charged with manipulating pitches—taking heat off balls, throwing intentionally weak pitches—all to influence prop bets [12:03]. Even professional athletes making millions are undermining their own sports for gambling cash.

This brings the magnifying glass directly to the WNBA. As one commentator asked, if no one is even paying attention, “what’s stopping the same schemes from happening there?” [01:43]. When a WNBA player goes 4-for-15 on a random Wednesday night, fans and analysts typically shrug it off as a slump or a bad game [01:56]. But in the current climate, that performance is subject to a new, terrifying doubt: Was it planned? [14:25]

Prop bets are particularly dangerous in the WNBA because investigative resources are limited, and the scrutiny from national media is significantly lower than that of the NBA. A player who fouls out quickly [14:00], or one who suddenly attempts way more three-pointers than usual [14:06], could be chasing a prop bet. For a player who may still rely on supplemental income from overseas leagues, the temptation to make a quick few thousand dollars by manipulating a stat line is immense.

The integrity of the WNBA, which is currently experiencing a massive surge in popularity and revenue, rests on the assurance that its games are clean. If the league fails to proactively address the systemic risks created by prop betting and the gambling-saturated environment, it is poised to be the next victim of the contagion that has already destroyed careers and betrayed fans across college basketball, the NBA, and MLB. The time for denial is over; the fix is demonstrably in, and immediate, decisive action is the only defense against the total corruption of the game.