We all are fully aware that Charles Barkley is completely unafraid to throw his money away. Don't get me wrong -- I am of the opinion that it is his money that he earned, so he can spend it in whatever manner he wants, but it is certainly established that Chuck lacks substantial gambling prowess.


And all of the national discussion about Barkley's gambling makes it easy to forget that he puts a lot of that money towards worthy humanitarian causes as well. Like, for instance, busboy Christian Abate who has worked at Saloon, a restaurant frequented by Sir Charles, over the last eight years, including full time status since he quit attending Temple University.

During a visit to Saloon last summer, Charles Barkley asked Abate how he was enjoying teaching, and was disappointed to learn that Abate had still not returned to Temple because of problems securing financial aid. Abate, 28, of South Philly, started at Temple in 1997, months after graduating from St. John Neumann High.

Sir Charles told Abate he would like to help him with his tuition, and Abate wasn't sure how to respond. Barkley didn't give him much time, telling Abate that he had the length of Barkley's meal to decide. Abate wisely accepted.

Circumstantial, as it may be, there is a lot to be uncovered in these NBA referee scandals when it comes to the action that Las Vegas receives on particular games. Obviously, the 130 phone calls from Tim Donaghy to Scott Foster are in and of themselves very bad news. Donaghy = guilty, and those swell-piece hits define "by association".

As R.J. Bell of Pregame points out, there might be a lot more to the Foster business than just the phone calls too.

During the 2006-07 period under investigation, seven games refereed by Scott Foster had lopsided enough betting on one team to move the point spread by at least 2 points; those seven teams were undefeated against Vegas – meaning that the big-money gamblers won a 7 of 7 times on Foster's games; the odds of that happening randomly are less than 1%.

Statistics alone cannot convict, but it's certainly noteworthy that seven times in Foster's games one team was bet extremely heavily, and all seven times that team won," said RJ Bell of Pregame.com.

Two of those seven games stand out:

The NBA addressed Monday's Fox News report that disgraced referee Tim Donaghy called fellow official Scott Foster a suspicious amount of times during the period in which Donaghy has admitted to betting on games he worked.

"The government had complete access to Tim Donaghy's phone records and thoroughly investigated this matter, including conducting an interview of referee Scott Foster," the league said. "The government has said that they have found no evidence of criminal conduct aside from that of Mr. Donaghy."

The Foster story failed to pick up steam Monday, which is either an indication the connection (based on 134 brief calls over six months directly before or after games Donaghy or Foster worked, often interspersed with calls to Donaghy's middleman) isn't as strong as it looks to the naive eye, or it's an indication reporters and pundits are too hesitant to pass judgment following that Game 6 debacle ... which ended up embarrassing everyone.

Still, isn't there a bit more meat here? Is anyone involved going to explain the calls?

Fox News has a rather incendiary report by Jana Winter digging into disgraced NBA referee Tim Donaghy's phone records. Winter reports Donaghy made 134 phone calls to fellow ref Scott Foster over a six-month spread during which Donaghy has admitted betting on games. Donaghy made no more than 13 calls to any other ref, and only phoned betting middleman Thomas Martino more frequently.

Based solely on Winter's account, it's hard to imagine there isn't something here. The bulk of the calls were shorter than two minutes in length and came directly before or after either Donaghy or Foster worked a game. Some of them are bookended by calls to Martino. The calls "stopped abruptly in mid March 2007, when Donaghy is believed to have stopped his gambling," Winter writes.

Foster worked two games in the NBA Finals (Games 1 and 5), and has reffed in the NBA since at least 1996-97. He's not one of the referees from Donaghy's hometown of Philadelphia.

Looks like Tim Donaghy is catching some sort of break after all, as the fedarales announced today that they believe Donaghy should not have to pay back the $1.4 million the NBA claims he owes the league. That figure was calculated based on his salary from 2003 to 2006 for 'honest services' (read: not fixing games) plus the costs of investigating the alleged improprieties.

In a letter filed Tuesday in Brooklyn federal court, assistant U.S. Attorney Jeffrey Goldberg said the government believes Donaghy shouldn't have to pay more than $500,000 in salary and benefits to the league. That amount represents the value of Donaghy's "honest services" for the years 2003 to part of 2006, money the NBA isn't entitled to recoup under federal law, Goldberg said.

The only amount of salary the NBA can get back as restitution would be for part of 2006 to 2007, the period during which Donaghy admitted being part of gambling conspiracy to which he plead guilty last year, Goldberg said.

See, this is a tough legal line to actually figure out. Donaghy has only admitted to cheating during those two years, so yeah, I suppose those are the only improperly compensated time frames.

You can tell how white-knuckled Charles Barkley is while discussing his gambling during the following interview; clearly he has been abstaining from hitting the tables. (If it's for a charity, it's called "donating".) He blames the media for it, because, goshdarnit, if we/they/us weren't reporting on him telling television cameras that he routinely loses hundreds of thousands of dollars, then it wouldn't be a problem.



Now, personally, I'm all for gambling whatever you want. As long as you're not destroying anyone else's life or becoming a danger to society, roll the dice all day. But Charles is only making himself look worse when he tries to blame other people for his gambling issue. The easy way out is to suck it up, let everyone know you're a millionaire, and spend your money however you want.

Wicked Chops via Deadspin

When something works (and by "works" I mean "gets a $400,000 debt paid off") you usually become pretty willing to use that method again. Which would explain why the Wynn Casino, who publicly shamed Charles Barkley into paying off a six figure debt, is getting busy in court again.

Wynn Las Vegas claims NBA Entertainment, NBA Properties and co-defendant Alonzo Mourning Charities have failed to pay a $50,000 bill for convention and meeting space and related services used during the 2007 NBA All-Star weekend.

[...]The casino claims to have entered into an agreement with NBA Entertainment for use of the resort's hotel and convention space during the February 2007 event.

NBA Entertainment then authorized the charity to use some of the convention and meeting space for a fund-raiser, according to the lawsuit.

But, in a vicious strike by karma, the casino quickly backtracked, stating that an "administrative error" led to the filing of the complaint against the NBA; they were only trying to sue Mourning's Charity organization. Which, while terribly stupid looking for the attorneys that represent the Wynn, is still just as embarrassing for Mourning.

Now, odds say that his charity organization either a) forgot to pay the bill or b) got crossed up with the NBA on who was going to pay the casino off. But that doesn't make it any less awkward for them, and you can bet the Wynn gets the 50k paid to them pretty fast. Or else they're coming to collect. And they don't take "no" for an answer. Just kidneys.

Via Ballhype

America (and the Interwebs) is great because you can bet on anything. And since you can bet on anything, it should be no shock that there are a slew of various proposition bets available for the NBA Draft. BoDog has been kind enough to appease the Jones in all of us.

What will Miami do with the #2 pick in the 2008 NBA Draft?
Draft Michael Beasely and Keep him -- 5/6
Trade Pick or Draft Michael Beasley and Trade him -- 5/6
Draft O.J. Mayo -- 2/1
Draft Any Other Player -- 5/1

Now, Beasley seems like the sensible player to take here, no? But Mayo at 2 to 1 odds (note they were a whopping 5.5:1 yesterday)? With Pat Riley in charge?

I thought I had my finger on the pulse of the internet gambling world, but props to Eddie Sefko at the Dallas Morning News, who apparently gets more updates from BetUS than I do. He posted some pretty ridiculous odds today, revolving around the Tim Donaghy case.

Some of these are obviously ridiculous (particularly the pet name one) but I think the juxtaposition of the odds between Donaghy lying and another ref coming forward is pretty fascinating.

Odds on another NBA ref to come forward with allegations: 9/5.

Odds that Donaghy is lying: 7/2.

Odds on pet name he is given in prison by Bubba (really, I'm not making this up):

Mary, 3/2; Sally, 3/1; Tina 14/5; Chrissy 2/1; Moira 5/2; Melinda 8/1; Beth 10/1.

Who knew that Moira was such a prison favorite?

Anyway, we got more. The odds on Donaghy's favorite activity while he's in prison:

Crying 4/1; Making paper doll cut outs 7/1; Talking to himself 10/1; Feeding pigeons 3/1; doing "favors'' 1/1.

And, finally, the over/under on amount of weight he'll lose in prison: 30 pounds.

Again, some are ridiculous (how the hell are you supposed to win "crying" -- does he admit that?). It's the top two that get me; Vegas apparently thinks it's more likely that another ref comes forward and admits that there was gambling than Donaghy is just straight up lying.

Of course, that could deal with public perception, since the majority of the people out there willing to vote in an online poll think the NBA is fixed. But then again, the possibility that Donaghy never caves isn't great so neither is a spectacular bet at all.

Charles Barkley publicly gave up gambling after news of a $400,000 debt (which has been re-paid) came to light. Well, here we are not even two months later and he's already headed back to the tables ... but this time, it's for a good cause.

Along with a slew of other celebrities, Barkley is participating in next month's "Ante Up for Africa" poker tournament, co-founded last year by actor Don Cheadle and pro poker player Annie Duke, which will raise money and awareness for Darfur.

Last year's event (which Barkley also played in -- that's him in the picture stealing a smooch from Duke) raised more than $700,000. Participants are asked to give at least half of their winnings to charity, but last year's top two finishers donated their entire winnings. Barkley intends on doing the same this year, which is awfully generous considering the event's $5,000 entry fee.

I'm sure Barkley hasn't always been pleased with all of the attention his gambling has attracted in the past, but at least now his reputation is bringing attention to a good cause. For more information on the event, including a signup form should you be in Las Vegas with an extra five large next month, check out the event's official website.