In 2024, a man wanted to rig a college basketball game so he could bet on it and make some money.

So he sent a text message to a group chat.

You got somebody at Robert Morris?

Robert Morris is a small D1 college in Pennsylvania,

and the sender was trying to find someone on the team who had agreed to throw the game.

Our colleague Jared Diamond covers sports and sports betting,

and he followed the events that started with this text message.

How did the person another end of that text respond?

Very quickly it became clear that somebody in this group did in fact have somebody at

Robert Morris, who might be willing to shave points or throw a college basketball game

in exchange for money.

That person was Marquise Hastings, the leading score for Robert Morris that year.

Hastings allegedly agreed to not only help, but also recruit two of his teammates to join in.

What they needed to do was underperform.

Miss shots make dumb fouls.

Hastings from outside.

Oh, what a heart back ass.

All to make sure that their team was down by at least two points at the end of the first half.

A foul at the other end of the floor.

In the meantime, the people who were responsible for these text messages were furiously betting as much money as they possibly could against Robert Morris covering the spread in the first half of that game.

Those gamblers got away with lots of money as a result of those bets.

And not long after that, the gamblers met up with the player and said, hey, here's your

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