There has been plenty of corruption in the collegiate sports world, as we recently learned from the investigation that has led to a number of coaches and personnel in the NCAA hoops world being disciplined.
And now that the Supreme Court’s ruling has given legs to legalized sports betting, there’s been plenty of talk about the effect it might have on the game.
Well, Metta World Peace recently came out and said it’s nothing new. World Peace revealed that while playing for St. John’s, he was approached by a gambler who offered him $35,000 to throw a game.
“I got approached a couple times to throw games,” he said, via Ben Rohrbach of Yahoo Sports. “The one interesting time, they come to me in my neighborhood and said, ‘Hey, I got $35,000 for you.’ I’m like, ‘All right, that’s cool, I’ll take $35,000.’ They said, ‘We need you to throw a game.’ That’s when I’m like, ‘You [expletive].’ But it crossed my mind — $35,000 to throw a game? Not bad.”
Not bad, indeed. Props to Artest for not taking the bait. He then continued on about the effect gambling has on young college athletes.
“But that’s the problem. They find these kids that don’t have any money, and they attack them. What if I was some kid that was a little scared, like, ‘OK, I’ll do it.’ That’s the problem I have with betting, because these guys who are betting, they’re bullies. Some of them are bullies. They’ll force a kid into a situation, and then when the kid’s trying to go to the NBA, they hold it against the kid.”
There’s been a lot of talk about how gambling can help the economy, but this is a good counterpoint to it.
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