Yes, you read the title right: Basic statistical analysis concludes that approximately 40 college football and basketball games were NOT played fair & square during the prior 12 months.
Exactly how was this number calculated?
The Pregame.com staff estimates that 700 football games and 3300 basketball games were available to be bet on this past season (only games that can be bet are worth fixing). That number could vary slightly due to some games being offered for betting online, but not in Las Vegas. The 4000 total is a conservative estimate.
Justin Wolfers, a professor at the Wharton School of Business, studied 44,120 games over the course of 16 years and concluded through use of advanced statistics that almost 500 games, or approximately 1% of all college basketball games have historically involved gambling-related corruption.
When asked in a 2003 NCAA Survey, over 2% of Mens Division I basketball players reported either having taken money for playing poorly or having knowledge of teammates who had done so. Undoubtedly not everyone taking part in game fixing will admit to it on a survey, strengthening the case that a 1% estimate of corrupt games is, if anything, potentially too low.
Professional games are much less likely to involve point shaving than college games, due to the simple fact that the pro players are for the most part millionaires, and not susceptible to bribery.
The case could reasonably be made that a football game is harder to fix (due to more players on the field, meaning any one player is less significant to the games outcome).
The key concept, though, does not require agreement on the exact number of games. Instead of debating decimal places, our attention should be placed squarely on the fact that many more games than the average fan would ever suspect are corrupt, and admitting that fact is the first step to improving the problem.
40 fixed college games last year alone! And most likely there'll be 40 next year and the next. I wonder how many of them I watched? How many my favorite team played in? How many I bet on?