If you haven’t read it yet, you must check out the newly released excerpts from the new Tim Donaghy book. This disgraced former NBA referee makes a few over the top, yet exact claims about how NBA officials go out of their way to affect the results of games. Basically, Donaghy admits that the referees are dishonest and would often play around with results on thing as immaterial as who needs to tip the team ball boys.

The most intriguing parts of the book are when Donaghy names names and points out certain referees and how they took pleasure in manipulating games. Tim discusses Dick Bavetta who was a ref in one of the worst officiated ganmes in history: game six of the 2001 western conference finals between LA and Sacramento. And although it’s arguable, he makes the following claim as well:

“The real reason that I bet the losing team was that I was just about certain they would cover the spread, no matter how badly they played. That is where Dick Bavetta comes into the picture.

From my earliest involvement with Bavetta, I learned that he likes to keep games close, and then when a team gets down by double- digit points, he helps the players save face. He accomplishes this act of mercy by quietly, and frequently, blowing the whistle on the team that’s having the better night. Team fouls suddenly become one-sided between the contestants, and the score begins to tighten up. That’s the way Dick Bavetta referees a game – and everyone in the league knew it.”

Working off of the assumption this was true it should mean that if you bet on underdogs in all the games Bavetta officiated you should have positively cleaned up even with any sports handicapping issues. I’m not saying you would win every game; that would be ridiculous. But the way Donaghy describes it, he made a killing with this betting theory.

I had been interested therefore I performed a number of investigations and the outcomes were very darn persuading that Donaghy is full of crap. Should you not understand, you must hit 52.7% of the wagers to generate a profit if you are wagering with common 10 cent juice ($110 to win $100). Donaghy was pressured out following the 2006-07 season therefore I looked over the 10 year period prior to that period and here are a few things I discovered.

Out of the ten year stretch when Bavetta was officiating, there were only two (1998/99 and 2001/2002) that returned a profitable score if betting on the teams most likely to lose. During these two seasons, the underdogs came back at 55.7 and 57.1 respectively. For these two specific seasons you would have made money, but that’s about it. No other season made these kind of returns during Bavetta’s reign. In a nutshell, if you bet your shirt on this theory, you would have lost it.

These numbers and research proove that these allegations about Bavetta are false, and make me question the truthfullness of other comments he has makde. This isn’t to say that the NBA didn’t do anything wrong, or that yes, refs do make mistakes from time to time – sports handicapping aside, but we must ask if the rest of Donaghy’s comments are legit.

Rich Allen is an expert in Sports Handicapping and his Sports Betting Professor Systems have sold over 250,000 units and cover all major sports including horse racing. Download a FREE copy of The Sports Betting Insider’s Guide at: http://richallensports.com/sports-handicapping