SUMMARY
- Shaquille O'Neal found out about the NBA betting scandal involving referees thanks to a bookie he met.
- Shaq revealed that he called out referees for questionable calls after hearing of their reported antics.
Shaquille O’Neal recently discussed how he came to find out about the betting scandal involving NBA referees before the news became public knowledge. As most NBA fans should be aware, O’Neal is a former NBA star and widely acknowledged as the most dominant player in the history of the league.
After his career came to an end, Shaq has engaged in several activities and remains relevant to the NBA world. On a recent episode of his podcast, O’Neal revealed how he knew about the infamous betting scandal well before the rest of the world found out. Now that the context has been provided, a closer look is undoubtedly required.
Shaquille O’Neal found out about NBA referees’ involvement in betting through a bookie
The 2007 NBA betting scandal is something that only veteran fans have a good chance of remembering. The league has done a great deal in order to move on from this blemish on its clean reputation. However, Shaquille O’Neal brought it back into fans’ minds while speaking on The Big Podcast with Shaq. Here is what he ended up revealing.
True story… Sitting in a bar and this guy comes. He says Shaq you probably don’t wanna be sitting here I said why he said I’m one of the biggest bookies in the world and people know me… I don’t want you next to me. I said cool but you ain’t gotta worry about me. So we start talking and I said hey you get players? He said no you guys make too much money I get referees..
While Shaquille O’Neal assumed that the bookie dealt with players, he found out that referees were more involved in gambling on games, “And then a couple of years later after that whole thing broke… Whenever I felt like the gaming wasn’t being called right I always used to go to the ref and be like the spread is 6 mother*uckers. I just used to tell them I know exactly what you doing the spread is 6.”
Although O’Neal kept the information to himself at the time, no one could have predicted that he was one of the first to find out about the betting scandal which seized the NBA world’s attention a while later.
More on the infamous NBA betting scandal
To those who do not know, the betting scandal story broke after the FBI began investigating NBA officials in order to find out if they were betting on games and allowing questionable foul calls to take place as a result. The investigation ended up focusing on Tim Donaghy, a referee who reportedly had connections to organized crime.
To make matters worse, Tim gave gamblers inside information on how games would unfold in order to make a greater deal of money. After his arrest finally took place, he was made to serve 15 months in prison and underwent supervised release for the next 3 years of his life.