The Indiana businessman who attempted to wager $100,000 on an Alabama-LSU college baseball game last year was sentenced on Monday (28 July) to eight months in prison and three and a half years of supervised probation.
Bert Neff, who received a text from former Alabama baseball coach Brad Bohanan saying that Alabama had pulled its starting pitcher, walked into an MGM casino in Ohio on 28 April 2023 and attempted to place a $100,000 bet based on the information.
MGM employees refused the bet, but allowed Neff to lay down $15,000 on LSU to win. The attempt to wager $100,000 and the ensuing $15,000 bet were considered suspicious by MGM employees. The bets were quickly flagged and, within days, markets on LSU-Alabama baseball were suspended. Within a week, Bohanan was fired.
Bohanan has not been charged. But the NCAA sanctioned him for 15 years.
Neff, whose son played baseball at Cincinnati when the bet was placed, wasn’t charged for wagering with inside information. Federal authorities charged him with obstruction of justice after he attempted to erase the Alabama baseball information from his phone. According to a federal affidavit, he shared that information with other bettors, four of whom placed bets on the game that LSU won, 8-6.
Neff a “professional gambler”
US assistant attorney Edward Canter called Neff a “professional gambler” in a sentencing memorandum. Earlier this year, Neff pleaded guilty and could have received up to 10 years in prison.
“Faced with a federal grand jury investigation, [Neff] worked to game the system,” Canter wrote. “The defendant destroyed evidence, tampered with witnesses and provided false statements to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. He did not do this once. He did it on dozens of occasions and he did so for the greater part of a year.”
Sentencing took place at the US District Court for the Northern District of Alabama.
LSU was ranked first in the nation at the time the bet was placed. The Tigers swept Alabama in a three-game SEC series and went on to win the College World Series. For the game in question, Alabama scratched projected starter Luke Holman about an hour before first pitch.
