Boston College basketball point shaving scandal of 1978–79

The 1978–79 Boston College basketball point shaving scandal involved a scheme in which underworld figures recruited and bribed some Boston College Eagles men's basketball players to ensure the team would not win by the required margin (not cover the point spread), allowing the gamblers in the know to place wagers against that team and win.

The scheme was conceived by Rocco Perla and his brother Anthony in Pittsburgh during the summer of 1978. The Perla brothers were small-time gamblers who saw the 1978–79 Boston College basketball season as a perfect opportunity to earn a lot of money. They wanted to recruit Rick Kuhn to join the scheme. Kuhn, a high school friend of Rocco Perla, was entering his senior year at Boston College and was expected to be a key member of the 1978–79 Eagles basketball team.

The Perla brothers proposed a simple scheme. They along with Kuhn would select certain basketball games where the projected point spread separating Boston College from its opponent was expected to be significant. Kuhn would be responsible for ensuring, by his play on the court, that Boston College fell short of the point spread. Thus, for example, if participating bookmakers determined Boston College to be an eight-point favorite in a particular game, Kuhn would be paid a bonus, usually $2,500, if Boston College won by less than eight points. In addition, they were given the opportunity to bet the money they were paid and double their winnings. Kuhn agreed to participate, and brought in his teammate Jim Sweeney.

Rocco and Tony Perla then mobilized a betting syndicate to maximize their potential gain from this operation. They contacted a local friend, Paul Mazzei, who was known to have influence within major New York gambling circles. Mazzei in turn contacted Henry Hill, a Lucchese crime family associate from New York who had befriended Mazzei while both men were serving sentences in a federal prison. Mazzei and the Perlas were particularly hopeful that Hill would enlist the support of his associate, James Burke ("Jimmy the Gent"), to finance the payments to the players and to set up a network of bookmakers who were in on the scheme. These bookies could handle large bets and lay them off and spread the bets among a number of unsuspecting bookmakers around the country so as not to arouse suspicion. They would also ensure protection for the enterprise in the event that the unsuspecting bookmakers, all of whom had thugs at their disposal to collect unpaid debts, discovered they were being swindled. Hill and Burke were brought into the scheme, after receiving approval from Lucchese crime family capo Paul Vario.

...
Wikipedia