Student athletes are easy targets and are susceptible to corruption for many reasons. These may include: 1) the money and goods that fixers promise to supply in exchange for their cooperation, 2) the players are invariably young, and this lack of maturity may have some part in their willingness to assume the risks entailed in illegal schemes presented to them, and 3) many are from modest socio-economic backgrounds and lack alternative means for earning money (Whelan, 1992). College athletes are very accessible. Fixers try to gain access to manipulate them or pay a commission to them for information related to their team (i.e., injury reports, morale, game plans, and discipline issues). The profile of the typical "athlete gambler- is someone who believes he can control his own destiny, someone who is willing to take risks, and someone who believes he possesses the skill to be successful in this endeavor (Saum, 1999).
Virtually all-illegal gambling is controlled by organized crime. Sports bribery is a result of illegal gambling. Sports bribery is defined as conferring, or offering, or agreeing to confer, any benefit upon a sports participant with intent to influence such participant not to give such participant's best efforts in a sports contest (Black's Law Dictionary, 1999). According to Bill Saum, Director of Agent and Gambling Activities for the NCAA, sports bribery works like this: "student athletes who have begun gambling on sports incur losses beyond their means to repay and, as a result, become vulnerable to point shaving schemes or poor performance schemes to effect the outcome of the game. Sometimes they participate in such schemes voluntarily in a desperate attempt to erase their outstanding debt, other times they are compelled by the threat of personal injury (National Impact Study Commission, 1999)."" This same scenario also occurs at the professional level, yet it appears to be predominantly associated with the amateur athlete as opposed to the professional athlete.
