Toledo Football Gambling Scandal
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- Larry Householder, the Speaker of the Ohio House, has been arrested by the FBI on charges of bribery and racketeering and is being asked to resign his position in the Ohio Legislature.
- Householder played a hand with favorable voting on the passage in the House of OH HB 194 that would legalize sports betting and it moved along to the Senate.
- Due to his involvement in its progression, the question of whether or not House Bill 194 should continue moving forward is now being asked.
College Football: Toledo Rockets Scheme One of the most recent point-fixing scandals in college athletics involved Toledo football and basketball players in the early 2000s. The Rockets had three football players involved in a sports bribery scheme dating to 2003. Sentencing postponed in Toledo sports gambling probe. In a sports bribery scandal at the University of Toledo say it would be. Toledo basketball and football players got money and other. Refresh this blog throughout the games to track bad beats, movement on the live betting line, halftime bets and more. 4:12 p.m.: FINAL: No. 20 North Carolina 62, No. Football, as awesome as it is, sometimes gets influenced by many things. Betting is one of them. The danger hit its peak when Colombia’s Andres Escobar was shot to death in a parking lot exactly 10 days after he scored an own-goal that led to Colombia’s disqualification from the FIFA World Cup 1994. Sports betting is now legal in 13 states after a Supreme Court decision in 2018 struck down the federal law that had limited full-scale legal sports betting to Nevada. The NFL has long been opposed to the expansion of legal gambling but since the decision has softened its stance and entered into limited partnerships with sportsbook operators.
COLUMBUS, Ohio – House Bill 194 that would legalize sports betting in Ohio may stall out after five people, including Speaker of the House, Republican Larry Householder, have been arrested on charges of bribery and racketeering.
While Householder is not directly connected to OH HB 194, he has been a supporter of it and its progression through the House.
Although unfair, with the charges brought against him, any bill that he was in favor of could now be put into question and OH HB 194 was one of them. The fact that this bill involves sports betting in Ohio already gives it skepticism and this case could make it worse.
The Ohio Arrests
On Tuesday, Householder along with his advisor Jeffrey Longstreth, lobbyist Neil Clark, former Ohio Republican Party Chairman Matthew Borges and Juan Cespedes, the co-founder of The Oxley Group, a Columbus-based consulting firm, were all arrested under allegations of accepting $60 million in bribes. The FBI had been investigating all five men for quite some time in building their case against them.
Nuclear power plants in Cleveland and Toledo were set to shut down after not having the funds to stay afloat. Householder would step in to help keep the plants open by tacking on an extra service fee to all electric bills in Ohio and give the plants $150 million that would allow for them to keep operating until at least 2026.
The legislation that Householder had to pass in order to get the okay to charge residents more for their power was to nix any previous ideas for renewable energy that the state was hoping to implement and push that this would keep the plants open and people employed.
Over the course of three years, a non-profit group known as Generation Now was funneled $60 million from an unidentified source. This would be the money that Householder and the others would receive for their help in keeping the plants open.
All of that money was taxpayer money and Generation Now is also being charged in the part they played in helping with the crimes committed. This is one of the biggest if not the biggest bribery scandal the Buckeye State has ever seen.
What Does This Mean For Ohio Sports Betting?
House Bill 194 passed in the House on May 28. It moved to the Senate in June for its next leg of hearings that have not yet been scheduled. Sports betting would become legal under this bill for Ohioans and it was seeing a very favorable trajectory.
LegalSportsBetting previously spoke to both primary bill sponsors, Representative Dave Greenspan and Representative Brigid Kelly who were confident in OH HB 194 seeing more acceptance by lawmakers as time went on.
Of course, COVID-19 issues were at the forefront in the Ohio Legislature before bills like that of gambling on sporting events could be discussed again.
Ohio Governor Mike DeWine ordered $775 million in budget cuts in March, prior to the full effects of the Coronavirus Pandemic. He has spoken out as an advocate for legalizing sports betting and would more than likely sign off on any legislation that was brought to his desk.
A legal sports betting market could bring Ohio millions of dollars that they were very much in need of prior to the outbreak of COVID-19 and new revenue streams are needed that much more. However, the question remains, will the association with Householder taint the future of House Bill 194?
News tags: Brigid Kelly Coronavirus COVID-19 Dave Greenspan FBI Generation Now House Bill 194 Larry Householder Mike DeWine OH HB 194 Ohio Ohio Legislature
Christina has been writing for as long as she can remember and does dedicated research on the newly regulated sports betting market. She comes from a family of sports lovers that engage in friendly bets from time to time. During the winter months, you can find Christina baking cookies and beating the entire staff at Mario Kart…the N64 version of course.
There is a thorough and excellent article by Mike Fish and George J. Tanber on the University of Toledo betting scandal at ESPN.com, which sheds a great deal of light on the tawdry world of gambling on college sports.Away from the Toledo campus, behind closed doors an hour up the road in Detroit, federal authorities have squeezed McDougle, 22, for information. According to sources, McDougle is cooperating with investigators as they appear to be focusing on 50-year-old Ghazi Manni, the manager of a family-owned grocery in Detroit. For the time being, the U.S. Attorney's office has dropped the charges leveled in a criminal complaint against McDougle in late March, but a spokesperson for the office called it a procedural matter. Sources say the investigation remains ongoing. . . .
McDougle is proclaiming his innocence:
Toledo Football Gambling Scandal Today
In an interview with ESPN.com, McDougle denied any knowledge that Manni might have been gambling on Toledo games.
'Obviously, sometimes people you know [are] doing things you never know nothing about,' said McDougle, who was suspended by Toledo this spring and since has been declared academically ineligible. 'It opened my eyes to a lot of different things. Basically, keep the people I really trust around me. It's changed my life as far as, I don't know if I'm still going to be able to play football for the University of Toledo. But it's not going to stop me from playing football. I still feel I'm good enough to make it to the next level either way it goes.'
Did he, ESPN.com asked, suspect friends or teammates of shaving points?
'Every time I ever played, I always played to the best,' McDougle said. 'That's how I always did. For the team, I always thought everybody was giving 110 percent. So I never felt that way.'
What about allegations that Toledo basketball players were also recruited to shave points?
'I don't even know any basketball players,' he said.
Have federal investigators asked whether Manni sought help to fix games?
'I mean, they asked me if I knew he did or not,' he said. 'I told them I didn't know what he was doing.'
But they believe he did, right?
'That is what they are thinking.'. . . .
Further trouble may be brewing for the University of Toledo with the NCAA:Just a five-minute walk from the University of Toledo campus, on Avondale Street, sits a small brick house that McDougle called home last football season. . . .
Ross, whose company owns nearly 100 rental properties close to the Toledo campus, said he evicted McDougle and three other Toledo athletes from the house in January. That is shortly after McDougle was first approached by the FBI. At the time, Ross said, the Toledo athletes were also about $3,500 behind in rent. Ross said some of the players made payments once the football coaching staff got word they were in arrears, though he can't recall McDougle paying his share.
Ross wouldn't identify the three Toledo athletes who shared the house with McDougle.
Nor would he elaborate on his contact with Toledo's football staff about the overdue rent. . . .But the NCAA is keeping mum on all matters pertaining to this case:
Toledo Football Gambling Scandal 2019
Larry Moore Jr., the investigator who led an initial Nevada Gaming Control Board probe in the fall of 2005, also said the state board notified the NCAA soon after that inquiry. Moore, now retired, couldn't recall how succinctly the situation was described to the NCAA, or whether point-shaving was mentioned to the college governing body at the time.Toledo president Lloyd Jacobs has a compliance mess on his hands:
What discussions went on inside the NCAA's Indianapolis headquarters, or how seriously the information from Las Vegas was taken, remains a well-kept secret. The NCAA has repeatedly declined ESPN.com's requests for clarification on issues related to the Toledo situation, a spokesperson saying it is against policy to comment on 'current, pending or potential investigations.' In any event, no one in the NCAA offices picked up the phone to tip off Toledo administrators to a potential problem until mid-October 2006. And even then, the possibility of point-shaving apparently didn't come up. . . .
Now, as fall practice proceeds, questions of athlete eligibility linger for the football and basketball teams. Even more troubling for Toledo are the institutional control questions: Did Toledo athletic officials know of any wrongdoing? If they didn't, should they have known? . . .You might want to get on that before the home opener on Saturday!
Earlier, Jacobs said that, before the season's start, the eligibility for every basketball and football player other than incoming freshmen would be reviewed and that the athletes would be interviewed by athletic department officials. Part of the review, presumably, is a requirement that players sign a statement saying they have not been involved in gambling activity. As of mid-August, that process remained incomplete. 'We are at the midway point of the interviewing process, and eligibility of players has not been determined yet,' said Toledo spokesman Matt Lockwood.