The Top 5 People To Be At The Forefront of a Sports Gambling Scandal in The Next 10 Years

Today marks a historic milestone in the sports world where the Supreme Court has allowed the great state of New Jersey (hehe, haha) to legalize sports gambling. A thought that has crept into the back of everyone’s head has been if there will be any corruption throughout the leagues as we enter this uncharted territory in American sports.

We saw it with the Black Sox, Peter Rose, Adam Sandler in The Longest Yard, and NBA referee Tim Donaghy. With a brand new hockey team in Vegas along with a football team in the next few years, something was already bound to happen. Now that we may have as many as 32 states legalizing sports gambling throughout America in the next five years I think it begs the question of what kind of person will be at the top of the next great sports gambling scandal across the U.S.

NFL Long Snappers

To make this list you need to be sneaky. It’s so easy to say an NFL kicker will be fixing games like Nigel Gruff in The Replacements.

It’s too easy to say Blair Walsh was fixing games when he missed that kick for the Vikings against Seattle in the playoffs a few years back. You could also say the holder could at the forefront of a gambling scandal, but that too would be suspiciously obvious. The answer for the kicking exchange is the long snapper. No one would ever question a long snapper for fixing a game for gambling purposes. No one even knows who the long snappers of teams are and if they fuck up you just chalk it up to their job being difficult. I could see it though. A snap soars over the kickers head trying to win the game and just like that millions of dollars change hands. No one would ever think to question them and they could probably get away with it every now and then.

MLB Grounds Crew Members

For baseball I’m not going to predict a certain type of player is going to be the one to channel their inner Pete Rose and throw games. Nope, instead I’m going to look closely at the grounds crew. Those sneaky bastards might be the most powerful people in the sport. These guys are so good at their job they can manipulate the field in anyway possible. How? One way is fucking with the lights. What if a team is staging a late rally and then all of a sudden a bank of stadium lights go out. Oops, looks like we’re going to be delayed for an hour while we get that fixed. Maybe someone is allergic to peanuts and you cover the rosin bag in peanuts and fuck with an incoming closer? Maybe when spraying down the field you water down a specific spot extra wet to affect the game. They can cut the infield grass a certain length so the ball rolls extra quick or extra slow? There are so many things an MLB Grounds Crew can do to fuck with the outcome of a game.

Golf Caddy

This is pretty straight forward. You’re heading into the final Sunday of golf tournament and you get a hold of a caddy of someone in the lead or towards the top of the leaderboard. The only guy who can mess with a golfer’s game out there is his caddy. That’s the man he will trust more than anything when debating if the golfer should use a 7 iron or an 8 iron. The difference, as you know, could be from a tap-in birdie to a ball in the drink. Well, what if there is a head to head bet between two average golfers. Not Spieth or Tiger obviously because they pay their caddies too much money, but what about a middle of the road guy? If you paid an everyday joe shmoo caddy  enough money he could definitely give his player the wrong read and silently ruin his day. All it takes is one hole to destroy you mentally in golf.

Backup Goalie

This works for a backup catcher in baseball as well, but a goalie also could have a terrible game in exchange for a duffle bag of cash. Backup catchers and goalies do not make a ton of money and could easily be paid off to throw a regular season game in the middle of the season. Just let a few balls or pucks go by you. To be honest Gary Sanchez could be throwing baseball games this whole time and we wouldn’t know because we think he’s just horrible at blocking balls behind home plate.

Third Base Coach

Another guy that makes minimal money. A third base coach could get so many guys thrown out at home plate and ruin a game without raising suspicion. Fucking Joe Espada on the Yankees last year might as well be throwing games the way he would send runners. You check the boxscore after the fact and you would NEVER suspect the 3rd base coach from throwing the game. This could also affect an over/under easily by sending or holding runners at will.

Honorable Mentions: Minor league baseball players, dart throwers, bowlers, tennis line judges

Today is a crazy day in American Sports history and it will change the landscape of sports forever. There will 100% be some sort of scandal in the next 10 years and it’s going to be awesome. I just hope I’m in on it, instead of being on the opposite side. Not likely.