He started small. In 2007, NBA referee Tim Donaghy was arrested for betting on games he officiated. "His father is an outstanding man," Rush, now retired, says today. And so it is that May's Supreme Court decision demands a review of the Donaghy affair. The Animals went so far as to study the box scores after each of Donaghy's outings. I was told, 'They're the kind of people who will do anything they can to protect themselves and the game.'". He has recently admitted that he wishes he was still an NBS referee. "Then you gotta cover the f---ing spread." Just before entering rehab, according to Martino and law enforcement documents, Battista had handed over the reins of the operation to Rhino Ruggieri. (Concannon declined comment for this story.) NBA commissioner David Stern kept Donaghy from working the second round of the 2005 playoffs because of the sheer volume (Sterns words) of such reports. Jimmy Battista Net Worth Jimmy Battista should have a net worth above $1 million. Still, in Scala's telling, the FBI eventually just had to move on. When presented with that data, ESPN statisticians crunched the numbers and revealed: The odds that Tim Donaghy would have randomly made calls that produced that imbalance are 6,155-to-1. "He started betting it with everybody and moving the lines like crazy. Tim Donaghy, NBA Ref and Convicted Gambler - The Sports Column | Sports We had a big bet on every f---ing game.". The Feds' job, on this one, was done. Premier underground bookmaker, now deceased, who, according to sources, profited from the scheme. Moreover, it was indicated he made $20 to $30 million in total for the mob families. The Pedowitz Report made no such conclusion. Martino couldn't remember, not exactly. He knew how to get into other referees' heads too, about different players because [the other refs] would follow him. When Donaghy became an NBA ref, that continued, sometimes with hookers. What is his Net Worth? It's impossible,'" Scala says. It hadn't taken long to deduce. A few weeks later, four days after the Post story broke, David Stern gave his first news conference. ", In the early 2000s, Rush went on to explain, the NBA undertook a wholesale revision of its refereeing guidelines, changes that would naturally lead to the entire NBA referee corps calling a greater volume of fouls, at least initially. That's when Donaghy "laid everything out" and "spilled everything," Kulle said. Lamell McMorris served as the lead negotiator for the referees' union in its collective bargaining with the league. They would use, per Martino's statement to the FBI, a code. As economist Wladimir Andreff of the University of Paris has written: "All economic analyses conclude that the more money there is inflowing to sport, the greater the sport corruption.". The next season, though, the volume rose sharply -- he made between 30 and 40 wagers on games he worked. I was just researching it. Inside the pipes was $1.1 million.) Crank's method boasted a certain elegance: It would capture any bias a ref might display in as simple a way as possible. "He said, 'I can't tell you. I graduated high school by the skin of my teeth cause I didnt give a f**k, Jimmy admitted in Untold, before adding he saw a drastically different life once he began working as a waiter locally. Griffin already had published a bestseller in 2005 with Black Brothers, Inc. about the violent rise and fall of Philadelphias black mafia. Frequent excursions were made to the Borgata, a casino in Atlantic City. His attorneys, he told her, had advised him not to. He said his old squad had received the initial ref-in-the-pocket tip in October 2006 -- almost two months before Battista had made his marriage with Donaghy. The big problem, Battista said, was that the betting markets appeared to be getting wise to the emergence of an astonishingly accurate NBA handicapper. Battista hiking Donaghy's fee to $5,000 for each correct pick -- minuscule compared to the amounts Battista was now wagering Battista bowing his head to his desk and snorting a line of coke to stay alert, to stay awake. If youre in a pinch and lack a coffee machine and a grinder, you can try making whats called cowboy coffee. This might not be the tastiest cup of joe, but itll certainly get the job done. In the early 2000s, the sports-betting world was undergoing its own equivalent of a dot-com boom. But it wasn't just the NBA; according to court documents, they decided to bet on Donaghy's own games. Much later on he would come to call this meeting "the marriage.". " And still it went on Donaghy in Dallas on Jan. 30 calling one foul against the home team and 12 against Seattle, including six straight against the Sonics when the margin was 13 or fewer. Donaghy rose from the table. . "Uh, no.") "Tim was very, very secretive. Battista said that if Donaghy could keep games close or far enough to cover the spread, he'd give him $2,000 a game to do so. In Donaghy's many conversations with the Feds through these weeks, he had begun pointing fingers and making allegations about other referees -- other refs who may have been corrupt. Ex-Referee Donaghy's Accomplice Says They Bet on Many Games The bribe was only two dimes, $2,000 per game -- an outrageous bargain. According to a court document, Donaghy and Concannon placed their first bet on a game Donaghy was refereeing in March 2003 -- more than four years and four NBA seasons before he was caught. Battista referred to Donaghy, 43, as "Elvis" because the ref was "The King" for how often his picks won. For all their desire to ply their trade in secrecy, sophisticated gambling syndicates often leave traces. The Animals landed in Curaao, where they helped launch an online sportsbook known as PlayASAP. They were now entering the sixth week of the scheme -- what you might call a sustained period of time. It means you've found something. But Warren Flagg, a private investigator and former FBI agent who worked with Donaghy's attorney during the case, will. According to a breakdown from NBC Sports, NBA referees earn an estimated salary of anywhere between $150,000 and $550,000 every year. Vercher told me that, in December 2009, after questioning from reporters, including ones from ESPN, she had wanted Donaghy to take a polygraph that asked point-blank whether he'd fixed games. And normally this guy lost. Can I maybe even invest in this thing? ", The Celtics played the 76ers the night after the Marriott meeting. But suddenly this recreational dumb-money insurance salesman was putting five dimes each on select NBA games and beating the bookies? ", Not every retired referee is reticent. Accounts of the meeting differ. In 2014, commissioner Adam Silver penned an op-ed in The New York Times advocating for legalization. How Tim Donaghy's NBA Betting Antics Made Him A Target Of The Mob Tim Donaghy Netflix docufilm returns disgraced ex-NBA ref to spotlight 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.