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 would agree 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 on the other 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 scorer 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 hard backass.
All to make sure that their team was down by at least two points at the end of the first half.
And 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.