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Gaming the Game by Sean Patrick Griffin
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Gaming the Game

The Story Behind the NBA Betting Scandal and the Gambler Who Made It Happen

$26.24

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Narrator Joe Barrett

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Length 8 hours 6 minutes
Language English
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In June 2007, the FBI informed the NBA that one of its referees, Tim Donaghy, was the subject of a probe into illegal gambling. Within months, the public knew the broad outlines of a scheme involving Donaghy betting on games he officiated with a coconspirator, longtime Donaghy acquaintance and professional gambler Jimmy "Baba" Battista. They were joined in the scandal by a mutual childhood friend, Tommy Martino. By November 2008, each man had pleaded guilty to charges relating to the conspiracy, and was in federal prison.

Author Sean Patrick Griffin, PhD, a former Philadelphia police officer turned university professor and bestselling author, conducted dozens of interviews and obtained betting records, referee statistics, court documents, and unique access to witness statements and confidential law enforcement files. Years of research are presented in Gaming the Game, which looks inside the FBI's investigation and beyond to provide the definitive account of the scandal. Jimmy Battista's remarkable decades-long bookmaking and betting career is examined, including and especially his role as architect of the widely publicized scandal. Battista, who—unlike his coconspirators—never spoke with federal authorities, reveals for the first time the intricate details of the scheme, most of which only he knows.

Sean Patrick Griffin, PhD, is a former Philadelphia police officer turned bestselling author. He is Professor and Department Head of Criminal Justice at The Citadel in Charleston, South Carolina.

Joe Barrett began his acting career at the age of five in the basement of his family's home in upstate New York. He has gone on to play many stage roles, both on and off-Broadway, and in regional theaters from Los Angeles, Houston, and St. Louis to Washington DC, San Francisco, and Portland, Maine. He has appeared in films and television, both prime time and late night, and in hundreds of television and radio commercials. Joe has narrated over two hundred audiobooks. He has been an Audie Award finalist eight times, and his narration of Gun Church by Reed Farrel Coleman won the 2013 Audie Award for Original Work. AudioFile magazine has granted Joe fourteen Earphones Awards, including for James Salter's All That Is and Donald Katz's Home Fires. Regarding Joe's narration of John Irving's A Prayer For Owen Meany, AudioFile said, "This moving book comes across like a concerto . . . with a soloist-Owen's voice-rising from the background of an orchestral narration." Joe is married to actor Andrea Wright, and together they have four very grown children.

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Reviews

"Impeccably researched . . . Insightful . . . After reading Gaming the Game, you'll never watch an NBA contest the same way again." -Las Vegas Review-Journal Expand reviews