(NEW YORK) — Former college All-American Antonio Blakeney is among 17 basketball players charged in a point-shaving scheme to fix games in the NCAA and Chinese Basketball Association and rig bets, according to an indictment unsealed Thursday in Philadelphia.
The alleged scheme ran from September 2022 to February 2025 and defrauded various sportsbooks and individual bettors.
“The sportsbooks would not have paid out those wagers had they known that the defendants fixed those games,” the indictment said.
In total, 20 defendants are named in the indictment, including basketball players who agreed, in exchange for bribes, to fix NCAA and Chinese Basketball Association games. So-called fixers who were operating the scheme then placed big bets on those games.
“In placing these wagers on games they had fixed, the defendants defrauded sportsbooks, as well as individual sports bettors, who were all unaware that the defendants had corruptly manipulated the outcome of these games that should have been decided fairly, based on genuine competition and the best efforts of the players,” the indictment said.
Two of the players named in the indictment, Cedquavious Hunter and Dequavion Short, both of New Orleans, were sanctioned in November by the NCAA for allegedly fixing games.
Two other defendants, Marves Fairley and Shane Hennen, allegedly recruited Blakeney, an All-American college player and a leading scorer in the CBA, offering bribe payments in exchange for Blakeney underperforming in games. Blakeney also allegedly recruited other players from his team to join the scheme.
After profiting on the fixed CBA games, Fairley, Hennen and Blakeney allegedly turned their attention to fixing NCAA men’s basketball games.
They are accused of recruiting players who would help ensure their team failed to cover the spread of the first half of a game or an entire game, the indictment said. The fixers would then place wagers on those games through sportsbooks, betting against the team whose player or players they had bribed to engage in this point-shaving scheme, the indictment said.
The bribe payments ranged from $10,000 to $30,000 per game, a sum prosecutors said exceeded most players’ legitimate opportunity to make money by marketing their name, image and likeness. The fixers also allegedly targeted players on teams that were underdogs in games and sought to have them fail to cover the spreads in those games.
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