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Corruption and Manipulation in Sports: Interdisciplinary Perspectives

On October 12, 2012, Florida State University hosted a two-hour roundtable panel entitled “Corruption and Manipulation in Sports” in Tallahassee, Florida.1 Panelists included Rick Borghesi, Sean Patrick Griffin, Katarina Pijetlovic, Jeff Reel, and Brian Tuohy. Ryan Rodenberg moderated the multi-disciplinary symposium. The foci of the panel were two-fold. First, with integrity-related concerns central to the passage of the federal Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (“PASPA”) twenty years ago as a backdrop, speakers discussed discrete issues related to how sports can be corrupted and manipulated. Second, the panel sought to collectively provide a primer that academics and professionals working in the gaming or sports law realm could subsequently turn to as a guide. This paper represents an outgrowth of the panel, providing stand-alone pieces (by individual authors) on specific issues under the sports corruption/manipulation umbrella that were addressed during the symposium and relevant to legal and economic issues in the gaming sector, particularly sports-related gambling. The result is an article reflective of how sports-related corruption and manipulation is interdisciplinary in nature. Ryan Rodenberg, an assistant professor of sports law analytics at Florida State University, penned the introduction to this article. In it, his aim was to provide a high-level outline of the relevant issues with citations to authority and illustrative examples. Independent author Brian Tuohy’s contribution introduces his findings from over 400 Federal Bureau of Investigation (“FBI”) files pertaining to sports bribery that he obtained via a number of requests under the Freedom of Information Act (“FOIA”). University of South Florida associate professor of finance Rick Borghesi’s essay explains how he tested the so-called “widespread point shaving hypothesis” in college basketball. Tallin (Estonia) Law School professor Katarina Pijeltovic’s piece flags a number of important issues related to the “pandemic” of match-fixing in various European sports. Sean Patrick Griffin, an associate professor of criminal justice at Penn State Abington, provides an overview of the recent National Basketball Association (“NBA”) referee betting scandal and details his statistical analysis of line movements in connection therewith.