The NBA is a league that’s dominated by stars. There are players like Michael Jordan, LeBron James, Kobe Bryant, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and the late great Bill Russell. These players are often the most popular athletes on the face of the planet, as helmets do not cover their faces, and the fact an individual can easily take over and win a game himself.
Not all NBA players become stars, and not all NBA players go through a career without a scandal. People may look toward Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving to see how their drama has ruined their reputations.
What if I told you this drama between Durant, Irving, and the Nets pales in comparison when it comes to the drama that ruined a former NBA player’s reputation from the 1950s? The player I’m speaking of is Jack Molinas.
Jack Molinas: Basketball Star, Gambling Champion
Jacob L. “Jack” Molinas was born in Brooklyn, New York, on October 31, 1931. He grew up in a modest middle-class family that owned a bar on New York’s famous Coney Island. In 1944, as a 12-year-old, Molinas discovered the sport of basketball, and he fell in love with the game.
Molinas quickly became a solid player at Stuyvesant High School, but basketball wasn’t the only hobby Molinas picked up when he was 12 years old. When Molinas was 12, he also became fascinated with gambling. This fascination would later ruin his life.
After high school, Molinas would attend Columbia University, where he played basketball. On February 19, 1953, Molinas scored a school record 41 points in Columbia University’s 81-58 victory over Princeton University.
Molinas record has since been broken by a few players, but his time at Columbia University was special, at least on the basketball court. Off the court, Molinas found a job in a risky business.
Molinas worked with a mob-backed bookmaker, and he placed bets on college basketball games, including bets on his own team. On top of betting on his games, Molinas would throw games to make sure his bets won. He also would win games but make a bad pass or shot toward the end of the game to keep under the points spread.
Author and former basketball player and coach Charley Rosen wrote this about Molinas in his book, The Wizard of Odds:
“To Molinas, playing in a rigged ball game was more exhilarating than playing it straight. Was it time to kick a pass out of bounds, or get called for a three-second violation? Or should he go on a scoring binge to make his own statistics respectable? . . . Molinas loved the idea of playing so many secret games at the same time.”
Molinas became addicted to the money he was winning in his gambling. Even after Molinas was drafted third overall by the Fort Wayne Pistons in the 1953 NBA Draft, Molinas didn’t give up his gambling ways.
This wasn’t surprising since professional basketball players didn’t make a lot of money in the 1950s. The average salary for an NBA player in the 1950s was between $4000 and $5000. It was reported in a New York Times article from 2002 that Molinas was making up to $50,000 per week from his gambling and fixing basketball games.
“I didn’t care about the money. I never did. Gambling was action. Winning was glory. Money was just a way of keeping score,” Molinas once said about his addiction to gambling.
As a professional basketball player in the NBA, Molinas would only play in 32 career games, where he averaged 11.6 points and 7.1 rebounds per game. Molinas’ career high in points was 24, which he scored in a 79-76 loss to the Syracuse Nationals in 1953. He was also selected for the 1954 All-Star Game, but he would not play because of what NBA commissioner Maurice Podoloff discovered.
Molinas was caught betting on games, and this led to a lifetime ban from the NBA. After being kicked out of the NBA, Molinas played in the Eastern Professional Basketball League (EPBL), which was later known as the Continental Basketball Association (CBA), for eight years. He averaged 27.0 points per game in 157 games.
Basketball in the EPBL wasn’t all Molinas achieved after the NBA banned him. He also earned a law degree, and he became a successful lawyer.
Things appeared to be going well for Jack Molinas. The NBA kicked him out, but he bounced back by entering the field of law. Was Molinas staying away from gambling? Or do old habits die hard?
NCAA’s 1961 Point-Shaving Scandal
One of the biggest scandals to ever hit the sports world occurred in 1961, and it involved college men’s basketball. There was a corrupt ring of people and players betting on games and throwing games in order to win the bets. This occurred from 1957 to 1960.
One of the masterminds behind the points-shaving scandal was none other than Jack Molinas. The disgraced former NBA player had his hand in recruiting college players to get into the point-shaving scheme. He did this by offering cash and prostitutes to the players.
The police eventually caught wind of the throwing of games, and Molinas was arrested. It was discovered that 37 players from 22 schools were in on the point-shaving scam and one star player, in particular, had their promising career altered forever. This player was Connie Hawkins.
Hawkins was not personally involved in the scandal, as he never threw any games. In fact, Hawkins never knew about the scandal, but he did accept $200 from Molinas, which was gambling money. Despite not knowing the source of the money, Hawkins was expelled from his school, which was the University of Iowa.
