1948 NHL Gambling Scandal: Betting on Career

On March ninth, nineteen forty eight, the NHL expels Billy Taylor and Don Gallagher for gambling on hockey. Here's the story behind this iconic moment in sports on Daily Sports History. Welcome to Daily Sports History. I'm Ethan Reese, your guide to a rapid deep dive into sports history every day. Gambling has always been an issue in sports. We all know about the Chicago Black Sox. We had an episode on New York City College gambling scandal. But even before that, the NHL had a gambling scandal that rocked the world in nineteen forty eight, when Billy Taylor and Don Gallagher were banished for life by the NHL. And Taylor was a twenty eight year old player in his seventh season of the NHL as one of the least top scores in the nineteen forties, including winning the Stanley Cup with Toronto in nineteen forty two. In the year before he was banished, he led the NHL with forty six assists and it was third in scoring with sixty three. And Gallagher was a young upcoming sinner and was the youngest player in the NFL when he joined the Boston Bruins. At the age of seventeen in nineteen forty two and the year before he got banished is when he really got involved with Billy Taylor, which many NFL insiders knew. Billy may have been a bookman. See, Billy owned his own pool haul back in Oshawa and he and a couple of friends for taking bets on games way back to when he played for Toronto. So when Gallagher was asked by Taylor if he wanted to make some money, Gallagher's ears popped up as he was still a young kid and money always sounded good, and Gallagher didn't think it was a bad idea as long as he was only betting on the Bruins to win. He felt like there was nothing wrong. He would just get paid for playing the games he was going to win. But that changed in nineteen forty seven when Billy convinced Gallagher that he could double his salary if he bet on the Bruins to lose. They justified the reasoning as it's not fixing games, but merely taking advantage of the information they knew, as they knew all about the injuries or the players going through issues in their personal lives. So during the four months where Taylor and Gallagher were teammates. They bet half a dozen times on the Bruins to win and lose. Now, that year, Taylor was struggling on the ice. He had just four goals in twenty points in thirty nine games and would eventually get traded to the Rangers, but he would still be in contact with Gallagher after this to continue betting on games, but not being on the same team, meaning they needed a little help, and in came James Tammer, convicted bankrobber in one of Detroit's Ory's gangsters. He would take Gallagher's accents instead of Billy Taylor, and this would ultimately lead to the downfall of the two and then getting expelled from the NHL. On February seventeenth, nineteen forty eight, Gallagher placed a call to Tammer putting money on the Bruins to lose. Little did he know that Tammer was actually being investigated for other reasons as he was a gangster and his phone was being tapped, So this whole call was recorded and later it would come to light that they were fixing games. When it came to the NHL's Attitchen President Clarence Campbell suspended the two for life, and now two years earlier, Babe Pratt was actually suspended for gambling on games as well, but he admitted it and was reinstated two years later and later inducted into the Hall of Fame. But Gallagher and Taylor did not learn from Pratt. Since Billy Taylor was near the end of his playing career, he just focused on business ventures outside the game, and he didn't feel an urge to apologize or deny anything. And later Taylor actually met up with Maple Leaves builder Con Smyth and a hockey banquet in nineteen seventy At the time, Billy Taylor was fifty one. He felt sorry for his situation, so he went up to the president of the NHL and asked him could he they pardon Billy and Gallagher, and they did in nineteen seventy one, but neither would go back to the ice. Gallagher, who was still in his forties, on being pardoned, didn't feel the need to go back or even apologize for what he had done, and he stayed away from hockey. At the time he was banned, he was only twenty three years old, his life had gone on and there was time for him to move on in his life. Later the Bruins, gm art Ross said one of his biggest disappointment was not helping Gallagher when he was going down the wrong path. He could have been a great player because he joined the league so young, he had his whole career ahead of him. Still, both Billy Taylor and Don Gallagher have since passed away, but their names will always be etched in hockey lore, being part of the biggest gambling scandal in NHL history. Luckily, the game has cleaned up as much as most professional leagues have, but with the rise of online gambling, we have seen it being harder for players not to get caught in the web of gambling, just as it was before. Thank you for listening to today's Daily sports History. If you wouldn't get in touch with us, come check out our website Daily Sportshistory dot com. We have all the episodes organized into categories and continue coming back for every day for more daily sports History.