Whistleblower · Tenderfoot TV & Audacy

Bonus 1: Herding The Sheep

February 20, 2023·26 min·1 clip

Jimmy Batista, the gambler who orchestrated the NBA betting scheme, tells host Tim Livingston over dinner that he didn't need Tim Donaghy — he could already make $50,000 a week moving money legitimately — then dabs his eye with a napkin.

First comes noise. A casino ad and a wrestling clip give the opening a strange, almost sideways feel before the episode returns to the basketball story that never quite closed. Then Foster declines. In an email, he says he will not participate and says the Donaghy situation ended over a decade ago, after unfair treatment he has moved past. The host does not buy it. To him, the refusal sounds like the same old message: this is ancient history, stop asking. The problem is that the timeline does not sit still. Foster is treated here as someone whose past cannot be neatly boxed away, because the questions around him are still hanging there. Batista and Tommy tread carefully. They do not swear to every game count, but they say Foster's games were all or almost all losing bets. That is where the episode tightens. In the account retold here, Donaghy gave Batista Foster's games so Batista could throw off Vegas. The host slows down to explain what that means. Heavy betting on Donaghy's games moved lines far beyond normal action. Odds makers notice that. If millions hit Donaghy's games and the line jumps four, five, or six points, regulators and the league may start asking why. So, allegedly, Foster's games became cover. Put money there too. Make noise in the market. Give anyone watching another pattern to chase. The closing question lands before the credits: how are fans supposed to move on when Foster still sits near so many unanswered questions?

As heard by us

A wary return to the Donaghy mess, where the NBA's tidy reset keeps running into new questions.

This bonus episode revisits the Donaghy scandal and the awkward question of what Scott Foster's games meant inside the wider betting mess. It traces the line movement, the Batista link, and the idea of using one set of games to muddy the trail around another, keeping the…

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Why you'd press play

You want the Donaghy scandal, the betting-line chaos, and the Scott Foster questions that keep coming back.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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