In March 1994, Arizona State University was locked in a fierce battle against Washington, with the clock winding down and every basket counting. On the court, one man played as if his entire future depended on it. What nobody knew was that the game had already been decided before the tip-off. Point shaving is one of the oldest crimes in sports.
It happens more often than fans would like to believe. Steven Smith, a star point guard who grew up with nothing, found himself at the center of one of the biggest betting scandals in college basketball history. He was the quarterback of the court, the player in control of the game. And that control made him valuable to people who weren’t interested in basketball at all.
In the smoky back rooms of Las Vegas, millions of dollars were riding on that very moment. Bookies thought they had it figured out. Gamblers believed they were just playing the odds. But the truth was far more sinister, because on that court, the game wasn’t just basketball—it was deception.
The man holding the ball wasn’t just playing for his team. He was playing for something much bigger, a secret so well hidden it would take the FBI three years to uncover. Smith grew up knowing basketball was his way out. Out of the struggle, out of the streets, out of poverty.
He wasn’t just good—he was one of the best. A point guard with the court vision of Magic Johnson and the scoring ability of Steph Curry. By his senior year, he was the top scorer in the Pacific-10 Conference. He seemed destined for greatness.
But there was a problem. In 1994, college athletes weren’t getting paid. Schools made millions off their talent while players like Smith lived on $130 a month. No endorsement deals.
No sponsorships. No money for food, clothes, or anything else. Smith was a superstar on the court, but off it he was struggling to survive. That’s when temptation walked through the door.
Benny Silman was the man who could get you anything you wanted. Cash, no problem. Fake ID, easy. Girls, booze, cars—whatever you needed, Silman knew how to make it happen.
But his real business was gambling. Silman ran the biggest underground betting operation on campus. For guys like Smith, betting on sports started as harmless fun. A few bucks here and there.
No harm, right? But there’s a rule to gambling: the house always wins. Soon Smith wasn’t winning anymore. By January 1994, he was $110,000 in debt.
And when you owe a bookmaker like Silman, you don’t get to walk away. Silman had a solution—one that didn’t involve broken bones or missing persons reports. One that, according to him, was easy money. Enter Joseph Gagliano, a 22-year-old former bond trader from Chicago.
He was smart, rich, and addicted to gambling. But unlike Smith, Gagliano didn’t bet on luck. He bet on certainty. The plan was simple: a concept called point shaving.
Bookies set a margin, a point spread. Instead of losing the game, all Smith had to do was make sure ASU didn’t win by too much. Slow the game down. Miss a shot or two.
Turn the ball over at the right time. No one would ever know. For that, Smith would get $20,000 per game—more than he’d ever seen in his life. That was all it took.
One nod, one handshake, and in that moment Steven Smith stopped playing basketball and started playing a much more dangerous game. In gambling, there’s something called a point spread. Bookies predict how much a team will win by. If Arizona State was expected to win by 12, all Smith had to do was make sure they won by less.
The oddsmakers set the line, the gamblers bet against it, and Smith controlled the outcome. But he wasn’t doing it alone. Smith needed backup, and who better than his best friend, Isaac “Ice” Burton, the best free-throw shooter on the team. He wasn’t even the star, just a role player.
If he missed a couple shots, no one would suspect a thing. The first fix was on January 27, 1994. Game one: ASU versus Oregon State. The line was 12.
5 points. Smith gets the call: “You can win, but don’t win by more than six. ” The money was in motion—$500,000 placed across 30 different sports books. Small enough bets to avoid suspicion, just under $10,000 per bet, the IRS threshold.
The art of deception was spreading the bets out so no single bookie smelled a rat. No red flags. No alarms. Just a clean operation, or so they thought.
Smith was too good, too dominant. If ASU won by more than six, the entire operation would collapse. It had to look natural. A sloppy pass here.
A lazy defensive play there. Oregon State fought back but never enough to win. Commentators called it a sloppy performance. Except for Smith—he dropped 39 points, his best game yet.
Still, no one suspected a thing. One game, one fix, over a million made. And for Smith, $20,000 in his pocket. But this was just the beginning.
A few days later, game two against Oregon. Same plan, same fix, same cash. But this time, the stakes were even higher. It was Super Bowl weekend—a gambler’s paradise.
Billions of dollars flowing in and out of Vegas, a perfect time to hide a rigged college game in plain sight. There was a problem, though. The line was 12. 5, and ASU was blowing Oregon out.
Smith needed to fix this fast. This was not part of the plan. Smith was out with an ankle injury, and with him out, the fix was in jeopardy. Gagliano was in Vegas, sweating, pacing.
If ASU covered the spread, millions were lost. But then something insane happened. Smith limped back onto the court, his ankle taped. He could barely run, but he was back in the game.
He had no choice. He could barely walk, but he had to control the game. He had to shave points. Fortunately, the final scoreboard read 84-78, a six-point win.
Another perfect fix. Gagliano cashed out $2. 5 million. For Smith, the money was real, the power intoxicating.
He wasn’t a college kid anymore. He was a businessman, a gambler, a fixer. But if there’s one rule in gambling, it’s that the house always wins. Soon, the walls would start closing in.
By February 1994, Smith had everything. The money was flowing. The games were fixed. As far as he was concerned, no one suspected a thing.
But here’s the thing about greed: it makes you sloppy, it makes you arrogant, and worst of all, it makes you think you’re invincible. The first mistake was the money. It was too much, too fast. In the span of a month, Gagliano and his crew had placed millions of dollars in bets—dozens of wagers, each just under $10,000, placed on ASU games.
Bookies were starting to notice. A betting line normally shifts a few points before a game. But ASU’s lines were moving 10, 20, even 40 times in a single night. Someone was betting big—too big.
Vegas doesn’t like losing money, and when things don’t add up, the house starts asking questions. Then came the game that changed everything: ASU versus UCLA. Smith should have stopped. He had hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash.
But greed makes you want more, and this time he wasn’t just fixing games—he was betting on himself. The plan was different. The line was set at four points. ASU wasn’t the favorite; UCLA was.
So instead of shaving points, Smith just needed to make sure ASU covered the spread. The game started, and ASU and UCLA went back and forth. It was a tight battle. Then, in the final seconds, disaster.
The scoreboard flashed UCLA 76, ASU 70. Smith looked up in shock. He had lost the bet. He had bet on his own team, and he lost.
But here’s the problem: he didn’t lose his own money—it was Gagliano’s. And when you lose a gambler’s money, there are consequences. Smith was in debt again, and there was only one way out: fix another game. This time, betting against USC.
But the operation was getting sloppy. Word was getting around. Students were whispering, and the secret was no longer a secret. On campus, students wearing ASU jerseys were betting $20 bills, acting like they already knew the final score.
Bookies watched in disbelief as the line shifted from 11 points to six. One of them picked up a phone. This was the final red flag: a 44-point line shift, the largest in Vegas history. The bookies had seen enough.
It was time to call the Nevada Gaming Commission. Afterward, Vegas had just tipped off the FBI. Coach Bill Frieder reunited with the players and told them he had just received a call from the FBI. They were investigating this game.
If anyone knew anything, now was the time to speak up. For the first time, Smith realized this wasn’t a game anymore. This was federal. The feds were connecting the dots: the strange betting patterns, the phone calls, the sudden influx of cash.
And they had one name at the center of it all: Steven Smith. The FBI had evidence; they just needed the right moment to strike. And when they did, it would be game over. For months, the FBI had been watching, tracking phone records, following the money.
Now they had everything they needed. It was time to move. Arizona State practice was in full swing when the gym doors swung open. A group of men in suits walked in without hesitation and made their way toward Smith.
The air felt thick. One of the agents pulled out a badge: “Steven Smith, we need to talk. ”
Everything that had seemed so certain just days before—the money, the invincibility, the illusion of control—vanished in an instant as he was led out of the gym. His teammates stood frozen, unable to process what was happening.
No one spoke. There was nothing to say. Meanwhile, in Vegas, Joseph Gagliano was already under surveillance. The FBI raided his home, turning up stacks of cash, betting records, and undeniable proof linking him to the operation.
Benny Silman was picked up next, taken into custody with little resistance. He had known this day was coming. He always knew how these stories ended. The evidence was overwhelming.
Over $8. 7 million in bets traced back to fixed games. Phone records confirmed calls between Smith and the key figures behind the operation. Casino surveillance footage showed the same faces placing identical bets across multiple sports books.
It was airtight. The feds had their case. By December 1997, the hammer dropped. A grand jury handed down a 72-count federal indictment.
The charges were severe: sports bribery, racketeering, and money laundering. When Smith stood in court, he barely recognized himself. The headlines had painted him as the mastermind, the one who had corrupted the game. The judge delivered his sentence: one year and one day in federal prison, along with $8,000 in restitution.
It was less than he had feared but more than he could bear. He had always imagined himself in front of cameras, but not like this. Gagliano, the man who had orchestrated the betting operation, received 15 months in federal prison and was ordered to pay $28,000 in restitution. Silman, the bookie who had introduced Smith to the underworld of gambling, got the harshest sentence: 46 months behind bars.
Even Isaac “Ice” Burton, who had played a minor role in the scandal, couldn’t escape the fallout. He was sentenced to six months in a halfway house and three years of probation. For Smith, prison wasn’t the real punishment. The real punishment was waking up every day knowing he could have been in the NBA.
Knowing he had been on the verge of something great before he threw it all away. The game had moved on, and all Smith could do was live with the weight of what he had lost.