Match Fixing

Match Fixing There was a large amount of media coverage regarding the fixing of European football matches this past week. The people investigating it believe that the fixers are Asian gangs and the report claims hundreds of games are involved some of which are in tournaments that are a fairly high level. I only think they were reviewing 4 years or so of games so if they do have 500 games or so as candidates it did seem there was a game that was being fixed fairly frequently. I'd have to review the dates and number of games again but I don't recall this going back 20 years or something. It would be nice to bet some fixed games I have to tell you that. I'll be happy to start my own list of sports we know to be on the alert for fixed matches. Any other sports to add or even specific known fixes, let us know. (1) Tennis. --Investigated and well documented. We can support why it may occur right down to the player level. There are at least a few banned players from the ATP and a list of guys who have been investigated which is actually pretty long. The Davydenko case is the most public but he was exonerated from fixing. (2) European lower level football matches but maybe higher level---Let's take the current study as true. Apparently some Asian leagues have been ruined over fixing matches? I don't know enough about where some of these games were lined if in lower levels of European football. Can there be that much money in that? Where do you do bet some of these games? But that frequency above would mean it is fairly prevalent. (3) International and league Cricket---I think this is also well documented including players banned from playing awhile back. Once again the limits don't seem high to such a straight and narrow bettor such as myself but I have heard that illegal bookmakers will take more significant betting sums on Cricket than Pinnacle or other known books. My understanding is that fixing may occur fairly often and can go to the highest games of the sport which does seem surprising. (4) American college football and basketball---Haven't they found a few issues with this but does not seem prevalent. Cases are more isolated.

In the NBA there's [url]https://sports.espn.go.com/nba/news/story?id=2943095[/url]

Skeeter, are you referencing the [URL="https://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/8924593/match-fixing-soccer"][COLOR="#FF0000"][U]Grantland[/U][/COLOR] [/URL]story? Alf sent it to me with the subject line "perhaps the best sports betting article I've ever read." It's good.

Thanks for that. That was a good read but my note was just based off other general news articles on the subject. There were plenty around a few days ago. I remember the NBA ref. What ever happened there? Did he actually fix or attempt to fix games or was he just conveying betting information? NBA seems like another isolated case. The American sports it seems isolated and restricted to a few situations. The European football, tennis and cricket I'll hypothesize it is possibly quite prevalent. They've replayed games in some of the soccer scandals and cricket and tennis have banned players The 11 Million dollar profit for the gangs let's say over 700 matches is 15K per game roughly. How easy is it to get down 15K on 2nd level Finnish or Hungarian games? How do you implement it and win in practice? For the most part I have to deal with being limited at sports books or in Nevada and I don't have any line of business where I win 100% of my bets playing 2nd level Finnish soccer leagues. Even tennis I never understood but I don't play at Betfair. How much money are they able to get down on a 2nd round match that any of these pros could even possibly think it is worth it? I'm sure they did it for a reasonable amount so I'm just wondering how. I figure if you're a 2nd level tennis player you just hope you get matched against Fed or Joker and try your hardest while simultaneously betting against yourself. Betting on Fed can't look too strange. You don't need to flop to lose. You pick up a few extra pounds for your 1st or 2nd round loss. If you happen to win sure you're out 100K or more but you should be proud of your accomplishments.

My guess is there is much more liquidity (and volume) in underground sportsbetting. Maybe you can't get down 15K legitimately, but there must be lotsa illegitimate ways to do it. I guess this is trickle-down economics in action. Rich gotta do something with their money.