FBI Supervisory Special Agent Phil Scala reviewed every game former professional basketball referee Tim Donaghy officiated in his 13 seasons working for the NBA. Scala said Donaghy was one of the best referees in the league, and in reviewing the tapes, he found there were no calls made outside of the realm of what would be deemed acceptable.
Donaghy maintains this truth today, after 15 months in jail.
Donaghy admitted to having a love of gambling and betting beforehand, which he said was a precursor to his own role in the NBA scandal. He said he would gamble on the golf course, playing cards and at the casino. He eventually started gambling on college football, basketball, the NFL and the NBA. Tim Donaghy was an NBA referee until he was banned for betting hundreds of thousands of dollars and for making calls that affected the point spread. Tim Donaghy watches himself on the screen. The following is the NBA's response to 'How Former Ref Tim Donaghy Conspired to Fix NBA Games,' published by ESPN on Feb. 19, 2019: The Tim Donaghy matter concluded over a decade ago with a full investigation by the federal government, Donaghy's termination from the NBA, and his conviction for criminal acts. At the same time, at the request of the NBA, former prosecutor Larry Pedowitz.
During what is known as the NBA betting scandal of 2007, Donaghy used his position as a referee to gather information about relationships between players, coaches, referees and owners to then bet on professional games. This scandal involved two childhood friends, Jimmy Battista, the gambler, and Tommy Martino, the go-between, who carried the money and information between Donaghy and Battista.
'If I thought we were going to get caught, then I'd like to think I wouldn't have ever done it,' Donaghy said.
The film Inside Game, which documents the involvement of Donaghy, Martino and Battista in the betting scandal in 2006 and 2007, was shown for its first viewing in Zoellner Arts Center on Tuesday, Oct. 8, followed by a question-and-answer panel. The film is scheduled to be released on Friday, Nov. 1.
The panel was the first time Donaghy participated in a public Q&A since he was arrested, and it was also the first appearance by both Donaghy and Martino. Sharkeys casino restaurant menu.
Tommy Martino's cousin, Paul Martino, '95, who was also on the panel, developed the concept and production of the film. Paul Martino is a general partner of Bullpen Capital and a Lehigh alumnus.
The project was initially slated to be a book. A ghostwriter visited Tommy Martino in jail once a week, in search of proof through Tommy Martino that Donaghy was fixing the games. Once he realized her intentions, he halted the book's production.
'I made a lot of bad decisions in my life, and I wasn't about to make another one,' Tommy Martino said.
Donaghy and Tommy Martino discussed the consequences of their sports betting deal and their experiences with the FBI. The FBI wanted to know if they were betting on games Donaghy was officiating.
'I was on a beach in South Beach, Miami, and I got an unknown call on my regular cell phone, not my burner phone,' Tommy Martino said. 'It turns out that the FBI was on my front porch, and I knew right then and there, we were in trouble.'
Donaghy admitted to having a love of gambling and betting beforehand, which he said was a precursor to his own role in the NBA scandal.
He said he would gamble on the golf course, playing cards and at the casino. He eventually started gambling on college football, basketball, the NFL and the NBA.
Donaghy said the FBI kept Donaghy, Martino and Battista separated for questioning, and tried to scope out lies in their stories.
Donaghy said the FBI threatened sentences of up to 20 years in jail and placement in Witness Protection across the country to separate him from his family, while Tommy Martino's family was bombarded with subpoenas and audits, which accrued a large expense for him.
In the end, Donaghy cut a deal first and was soon followed by Tommy Martino.
The film took eight years to produce, as Paul Martino said having representations of real people on the screen results in a lot of legal issues to deal with.
A film studio previously offered Tommy Martino a contract which would allow the studio to use Tommy Martino and his story in reality television and game shows. Paul Martino urged his cousin not to sign the deal.
'Tommy insisted, saying, ‘no, I really want to do something,' so I said, ‘I'll buy your life rights then,'' Paul Martino said. 'This whole project started with me buying my cousin's life rights in 2011.'
Although he had never produced a film before, he used his 25 years of entrepreneurial skills to deal with the business side of film. He assisted with hiring people, finances, marketing and more.
'I always thought it was a possibility that I would one day be involved in the creative side of Hollywood because I had worked with so many of those businesses for digital music distribution and film distribution,' Paul Martino said.
The head of marketing for FanDuel, a fantasy sports company, is in charge of marketing for the film. Paul Martino said he was on the board of FanDuel for years. FanDuel is currently one of the largest sports betting companies.
Tim Donaghy Gambling
In 2018, the Supreme Court lifted the federal ban on sports betting.
Former NBA Commissioner David Stern painted Donaghy as a rogue official, and said there were no problems in the NBA, since 'that one guy was gone.'
'The leagues have done a lot of things to try and prevent these problems from happening again,' Paul Martino said. 'They've implemented a lot of education programs and sequestered the referees from the players in different ways than they used to. It's probably impossible to prevent, so the leagues are doing a good job I think, but there's always more that you can probably do.'
Donaghy said all of the referees would discuss calls as an officiating crew. However, he said he accurately bet on games because he was able to manipulate the relationships between referees and players and referees and coaches.
He said he could predict the outcomes of calls on the court based on the meetings he had in the morning and in the locker room with both teams by bringing up injuries and players' actions in previous games to see if they had to 'stick it to a player.'
'People think I was out there putting Kobe Bryant, Lebron James, Shaquille O'Neil to the bench so that a bet would win, but I never did that,' Donaghy said. 'I just did what the NBA wanted us to call.'
The following is the NBA's response to 'How Former Ref Tim Donaghy Conspired to Fix NBA Games,' published by ESPN on Feb. 19, 2019:
The Tim Donaghy matter concluded over a decade ago with a full investigation by the federal government, Donaghy's termination from the NBA, and his conviction for criminal acts. At the same time, at the request of the NBA, former prosecutor Larry Pedowitz conducted an independent investigation of Donaghy's misconduct and issued publicly a 133-page report. This report was based on an extensive review of game data and video as well as approximately 200 interviews, thousands of pages of documents, and consultation with various gambling and data experts.
'People think I was out there putting Kobe Bryant, Lebron James, Shaquille O'Neil to the bench so that a bet would win, but I never did that,' Donaghy said. 'I just did what the NBA wanted us to call.'
The following is the NBA's response to 'How Former Ref Tim Donaghy Conspired to Fix NBA Games,' published by ESPN on Feb. 19, 2019:
The Tim Donaghy matter concluded over a decade ago with a full investigation by the federal government, Donaghy's termination from the NBA, and his conviction for criminal acts. At the same time, at the request of the NBA, former prosecutor Larry Pedowitz conducted an independent investigation of Donaghy's misconduct and issued publicly a 133-page report. This report was based on an extensive review of game data and video as well as approximately 200 interviews, thousands of pages of documents, and consultation with various gambling and data experts.
The ESPN Article attempts to revive this old story. Unfortunately, it is replete with errors, beginning with its statement that the Pedowitz Report 'concluded that Donaghy, in fact, did not fix games.' The Pedowitz Report made no such conclusion. Rather, the investigation found no basis to disagree with the finding of the FBI and the U.S. Attorney's Office that '[t]here is no evidence that Donaghy ever intentionally made a particular ruling during a game in order to increase the likelihood that his gambling pick would be correct.' ESPN ignores this important distinction.
The new material that ESPN has assembled to support its own conclusion that Donaghy manipulated games is not strong and adds little to the existing record.
Quoted Individuals
The ESPN Article includes several quotes from named and unnamed individuals. But these statements conflict with other evidence in the record and in many cases are based on speculation. For example:
• ESPN quotes Phil Scala, a retired FBI agent who was part of the government's investigation, as saying Donaghy's claim that he did not manipulate games 'never really flew with us.' But in 2009, Scala wrote a foreword to a book authored by Donaghy in which Scala characterized Donaghy's cooperation as 'unconditionally truthful' and stated that Donaghy 'confess[ed] his sins, [took] full responsibility for his actions, pa[id] his debt to society, and [found] the humility to completely display his past vices.'
• ESPN quotes an anonymous 'professional gambler' as claiming Donaghy told him 'he liked to call an illegal defense call, right away, in the first minute.' But this claim is not accurate. In the 274 regular season and playoff games that Donaghy officiated during the 2003-04 to 2006-07 seasons, he called illegal defense three times during the first minute of a game.
• ESPN asserts that Donaghy had 'come clean' to Tommy Martino. But the actual quotes attributed to Martino do not appear to support that conclusion – they only suggest that Donaghy told Martino he could influence games, not that he had in fact done so.
Statistical Analysis
The ESPN Article relies on a statistical analysis of Donaghy's officiating and betting line movements. We asked ESPN to provide us with the data and assumptions underlying this analysis, but they refused. Based on the limited information contained in the Article, we attempted to replicate ESPN's findings – but were unable to do so. Indeed, our analysis found no meaningful pattern of Donaghy making more calls in favor of the team that had the 'heavier betting.'
Further, the original analyses conducted by the Pedowitz team were significantly more comprehensive than what ESPN appears to have done. For example, ESPN's work appears to include only foul calls, and not significant non-calls or violations. It further treats all calls the same, without considering the nature or circumstances of the call – such as 'take fouls' or high-impact shooting fouls. And ESPN questionably excludes from its analysis 10 games that it deemed to be 'blowouts' and roughly 50 calls that it could not attribute to a particular referee – omissions that could meaningfully alter its conclusions.
Finally, it is important to remember that a statistical analysis can only suggest a probability of an event's occurrence – it does not itself constitute direct evidence that an event occurred. By contrast, the Pedowitz team and the NBA supplemented statistical analysis with an assessment of the accuracy of each of Donaghy's actual calls and non-calls in relevant games. These analyses also did not support ESPN's conclusions.
Anecdotal Evidence from Games
Tim Donaghy Gambling Show
The ESPN Article cites several games officiated by Donaghy that included calls or call patterns that ESPN deemed suspicious. However, these examples have limited value separate from a more careful video analysis, and they frequently omit material information. For example:
Tim Donaghy Gambling Winnings
• Dallas @ Seattle, 12/20/2006: ESPN cites a foul called by Donaghy against Seattle with 23 seconds remaining in the game that purportedly gave Dallas an opportunity to cover an 8-point spread. But it omits that this was an intentional 'take foul' by Seattle. The Article also cites a streak of fouls called by Donaghy against Seattle in the same game, purportedly to favor Dallas. But it omits that after this streak, and during the last four minutes of the game, Donaghy called two fouls against Dallas.
• Boston @ Philadelphia, 12/13/2006: ESPN cites two consecutive fouls called by Donaghy against the Sixers' Andre Iguodala in the third quarter when the game's score margin was near the point spread. But it omits that between those fouls, Donaghy called a foul against the Celtics' Paul Pierce.
• Washington @ Indiana, 3/14/2007: ESPN cites four consecutive fouls called by Donaghy against the Pacers in the fourth quarter when the game's margin was near the point spread. But it omits that immediately prior to this streak, Donaghy called four consecutive fouls against the Wizards.
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We recognize there is strong interest in the subject of expanded sports betting and the measures sports organizations should undertake to protect integrity. However, the ESPN Article does not add anything material to the record of what happened over a decade ago. There is no dispute that Tim Donaghy engaged in criminal conduct as an NBA referee, costing him his job, his reputation, and for a time, his freedom. The Pedowitz investigation focused on understanding what Donaghy did and how he did it so we would be best equipped to protect the integrity of our games going forward.
In that regard, the Pedowitz Report prompted changes to the NBA's officiating and integrity programs. A summary of the initiatives the NBA has adopted since 2008is available here. This summary provides added context that describes the NBA's response to the Donaghy situation and our continued efforts to ensure that the NBA's integrity programs meet the highest standards.
The Donaghy matter also underscores the need for sports leagues to have greater access to betting data from sports books to monitor gambling on their games. We will continue our ongoing efforts to obtain this information to further expand our integrity efforts and best protect our sport in an age of legalized sports gambling.
