Point shaving in NCAA Men's Basketball: Behavioral finance, scale, and deterrence

We examine point-shaving corruption in NCAA Men's Basketball betting markets, which has persisted despite deterrence policies. We collect data on players indicted or implicated for point-shaving within the last 50 years and find that: (1) the act is significantly more common among senior, or final-year, players and (2) lack of deterrence leverage is an important factor in the representative player's decision calculus. Lastly, we analyze properties of a potential behavioral finance policy to further deter point-shaving, whereby players receive a grant (athletic scholarship) that retroactively converts into a market-rate student loan given malfeasance. The policy's deterrence properties are examined theoretically.