Showing results for "Gambling" in True Crime

WELCOME TO GAMBLING STATE UNIVERSITY, The hilariously dark, true-crime story of "Shinehead," the college student who inadvertently became a sports bookie who franchised his business model to numerous major universities and made millions before graduating, all while staying one step ahead of the university and the police… but not the mob.It was the late 1980s when Shinehead was a freshman at a major state university in the south. He was a clean-cut kid from a straight-laced family who was dropped into the heart of SEC country, where sports are king and nothing else matters. His background in ...

In June 2007, the FBI informed the NBA that one of its referees, Tim Donaghy, was the subject of a probe into illegal gambling. Within months, the public knew the broad outlines of a scheme involving Donaghy betting on games he officiated with a coconspirator, longtime Donaghy acquaintance and professional gambler Jimmy "Baba" Battista. They were joined in the scandal by a mutual childhood friend, Tommy Martino. By November 2008, each man had pleaded guilty to charges relating to the conspiracy and was in federal prison.

As a string of high-profile jewel thefts went unsolved during the Swinging Sixties, the press dubbed the elusive thief the King of Diamonds. Like Cary Grant in To Catch a Thief, the King was so bold that he tip-toed into the homes of millionaires while they were home, hiding in their closets and daring to smoke while they were sleeping. Rena Pederson, then a young reporter with UPI, started following the elusive thief while she managed the night desk. With gymnastic skill, he climbed trees and crawled across rooftops to take jewels from heiresses, oil kings, corporate CEOs.