.@MettaWorldPeace says he was offered $35,000 ? to fix games in college and because of that he’s not a fan of the new ruling to make sports betting legal. pic.twitter.com/G6FkMZg9fT
— Yahoo Sports (@YahooSports) May 16, 2018
Former NBA star Metta World Peace admitted that he was offered cash to throw games while attending St. John’s University.
Metta World Peace has never been afraid to say what’s on his mind. So it was somewhat surprising to hear him talk about being offered cash to throw basketball games nearly 20 years after playing his last game for St. John’s.
“I see the issues with betting,” World Peace told Yahoo’s Jared Quay during a recent interview. “I’ve been approached in college. I got approached a couple times to throw games. The one interesting time, they come to me in my neighborhood and say, ‘Hey, you know, I got $35,000 for you. I’m like, ‘All right, that’s cool. I’ll take $35,000.’ They say, ‘Hey, we need you to throw a game.’ And that’s when I’m like, ‘You a–hole.’ ”
World Peace, who was known as Ron Artest during his days playing for the Red Storm, is a Queensbridge native and someone to who, like many of us, $35,000 would be a life-changing amount of money.
But to his credit, he wasn’t having any of it.
“It crossed my mind. ‘$35,000 just to throw a game. Not bad,’ ” he said. “But that’s the problem when you don’t have no money. They find these kids that don’t have no money and attack them. But it’s like, what if I was some kid who was a like a little scared. It’s like, ‘OK, I’ll do it.’ ”
With the U.S. Supreme Court recently doing away with a federal law that made betting on sports illegal in most states, World Peace’s concern over college players being approached to throw games is certainly valid.
While we’d like to think that most athletes, collegiate or professional, would have the wherewithal, ethics and fortitude to turn those who offer large sums of cash in return for throwing a game down, we’ve seen it happen before.
It’s only a matter of time before it happens again.
