Word: spread
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Dates: during 2000-2000
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...Northwestern players ultimately pleaded guilty to gambling charges growing out of a point-shaving scheme to fix three basketball games in 1995. In return for payoffs from gamblers, the players agreed to hold down the score so that Northwestern would lose by more than the oddsmakers' point spread...
...that's the source of a nagging question--not just for gamblers but for fans, coaches and university administrators. If a team beats its opponents but not by the official Vegas spread, were the games fixed? Did players deliberately miss shots? Did they intentionally foul? Did they purposely fail to block shots...
...perverse influence of the point spread is that it pressures teams to rack up enough points to beat the line. Says coach Holtz: "I have witnessed our football players be idolized, praised and cheered after a win. I've also witnessed them being ridiculed, demonized and ostracized after a win. The only difference was in one case we covered the point spread. In the other we didn...
...enforcement officials typically offer a different view: that legal sports betting actually fuels illegal gambling and provides two services for bookies everywhere. It gives them a reliable source for quoting the odds on a game and, more important, provides a convenient place to spread the risk on their bets. Says Wayne A. Johnson, chief investigator of the Chicago Crime Commission, the citizens watchdog committee that has been fighting organized crime since the days of Al Capone: "Legalized gambling only perpetuates illegal gambling. It does not displace it, as many people believe. That's a false assumption." Even Nevada's regulatory...
...Northwestern games were selected: against Wisconsin on Feb. 15, Penn State on Feb. 22 and Michigan on March 1. Once the Nevada sports books set the line, Pendergast would telephone Lee with that number. Northwestern, the underdog in all three games, had to lose each by more than the spread...