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Sport in Society: Cultures, Commerce,

Media, Politics
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Cheating the spread: gamblers, point

shavers, and game fixers in college
football and basketball
a
Wray Vamplew
a
University of Stirling, Stirling, UK
Published online: 29 Jul 2013.

To cite this article: Wray Vamplew (2013) Cheating the spread: gamblers, point shavers, and game
fixers in college football and basketball, Sport in Society: Cultures, Commerce, Media, Politics,
16:9, 1220-1220, DOI: 10.1080/17430437.2013.820574

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17430437.2013.820574

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 1220 Book Reviews

Notes
1. Hargreaves, Sport, Power and Culture.
2. Jhally, Cultural Studies.

References
Hargreaves, John. Sport, Power and Culture. Cambridge: Polity Press, 1986.
Jhally, Sut. Cultural Studies and the Sports/Media Complex. In Media, Sorts, and Society, ed.
L. Wenner, 41 57. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 1989.
Downloaded by [National Pingtung University of Science and Technology] at 17:33 19 December 2014

John Horne
University of Central Lancashire, Preston, UK
jdhorne@uclan.ac.uk
q 2013, John Horne
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17430437.2013.820572

Cheating the spread: gamblers, point shavers, and game fixers in college football and
basketball, by Albert J. Figone, Urbana, University of Illinois Press, 2012, 196 pp., $21.95
(paperback), ISBN 978-0-252-07875-0; $80.00 (hardback), ISBN 978-0-252-03728-3

As an ex-college football coach, Albert Figone is in a privileged position to write about the
history of scandal in American college sport. Alas he is no historian and rarely does he
venture beyond a chronological narrative of the misdeeds that he has unearthed. Nor, as
any reputable historian should do, does he critique the court records, newspaper articles,
books, government documents, magazine articles, documents found in university archives,
scholarly journals and interviews on which his account is based.
His basic argument is that as gambling has developed into Americas biggest industry,
its influence on sportspersons behaviour has increased with a consequent effect on scores
and results. However, as he fails to quantify the level of corruption in college sport, he
cannot say whether the abuse occurring there was more or less than in other activities on
which gamblers bet their money. Nor does he assess the relative levels of corruption
associated with gambling, drugs and violence.
Figone is from the old school of coaches who believe that cheating is wrong, but, like
most fair play advocates, he does not specify why unethical behaviour should be
condemned. Instead he takes it as a given. He does not consider the possibility that there
might be degrees of cheating. Whereas deliberately losing a game is clearly anathema to
those who pursue good sporting conduct, is still winning but by a margin lower than
expected an equal level of malfeasance?
The book is worth reading simply to become aware that college sport is more than a
game. Its economic spinoffs are important to both the colleges and their neighbourhood
communities. Figone shows that at times, college sport is also less than a game: its results
become less unpredictable as gamblers, players and even coaches seek a marginal
advantage in the betting market.

Wray Vamplew
University of Stirling, Stirling, UK
wray.vamplew@stir.ac.uk
q 2013, Wray Vamplew
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17430437.2013.820574