In my last post I alluded to the fact that Tim Donaghy only had a vested interest in the games he officiated. Remember that Donaghy claimed that he didn’t actually bet on the games. Instead he claimed that he would receive payment from his co-consiparators James Battista and Thomas Martino if the team he selected won. 

This is not unusual in the gambling business, its known as working on a freeroll and its quite common. I’d also offer that that its not that different from actually wagering on a game. Its clear that Donaghy still had a vested interest in the games he officiated.

I am going to focus primarily (for now) on the 2007 NBA Season as this is the season that Donaghy began working with Martino and Battista.

Battista makes it quite clear in several interviews (HBO Real Sports did a great piece) that he was uninterested in betting on any games that Donaghy wasn’t officiating. 

Here is a link to the games Donaghy officiated from December 12th 2006 (the time he started working with Battista till the end of the 2007 Season. 

I have added the Opening Line, the Closing line as well as the other 2 officials. Note that I am using my own database for the lines which may differ from other sources. The line I use for the opening line is the actual widely available line (wa lines) at approximately 6:00am PST the day of the games. The actual time will vary from game to game but the general idea is that the first time a games market is full, this is the opening line. 

By full market I mean that generally you will be able to place a wager of between 50-100k on a full game side, and ~40k on a full game total. These numbers will vary depending on the size of your market and the number of outs (places you can bet). Why is this important? 

If you believe (as I do) that the people working with Donaghy were intending to bet as much money as possible on these games (why wouldn’t you) then its clear that the earliest possible time they would be able to bet these games would be at around 6:00am PST the day of the games. I’ll outline later on why even using the 6:00am opening line as your benchmark line for detecting movement doesn’t always work either in another post. 

So now that we have a list of the 2007 Donaghy and the opening and closing lines which games then did Donaghy and his crew bet on?

All of them.