In organized
sport
Sport pertains to any form of competitive physical activity or game that aims to use, maintain, or improve physical ability and skills while providing enjoyment to participants and, in some cases, entertainment to spectators. Sports can, ...
s, match fixing is the act of playing or officiating a match with the intention of achieving a pre-determined result, violating the rules of the game and often the law. There are many reasons why match fixing might take place, including receiving
bribes from
bookmaker
A bookmaker, bookie, or turf accountant is an organization or a person that accepts and pays off bets on sporting and other events at agreed-upon odds.
History
The first bookmaker, Ogden, stood at Newmarket in 1795.
Range of events
Book ...
s or
sports bettors, and
blackmail
Blackmail is an act of coercion using the threat of revealing or publicizing either substantially true or false information about a person or people unless certain demands are met. It is often damaging information, and it may be revealed to f ...
. Competitors may also intentionally perform poorly to gain a future advantage, such as a better
draft pick or to face an easier opponent in a later round of competition. A player might also play poorly to rig a
handicap system.
Match fixing, when motivated by
gambling
Gambling (also known as betting or gaming) is the wagering of something of Value (economics), value ("the stakes") on a Event (probability theory), random event with the intent of winning something else of value, where instances of strategy (ga ...
, requires contacts (and normally money transfers) between gamblers, players, team officials, and/or referees. These contacts and transfers can sometimes be discovered, and lead to prosecution by the law or the sports league(s). In contrast, losing for future advantage is internal to the team and very difficult to prove. Often, substitutions made by a
coach
Coach may refer to:
Guidance/instruction
* Coach (sport), a director of athletes' training and activities
* Coaching, the practice of guiding an individual through a process
** Acting coach, a teacher who trains performers
Transportation
* Co ...
designed to deliberately increase the team's chances of losing (such as having key players sit out, using minimal or phantom injuries as an excuse), rather than ordering the players actually on the field to intentionally underperform, are cited as the main factor in cases where this has been alleged.
Match fixing includes
point shaving and
spot-fixing, which center on smaller events within a match that can be wagered upon, but which are unlikely to prove decisive in determining the final result of the game. According to
Sportradar, a company that monitors the integrity of sports events on behalf of sports federations, as many as one percent of the matches they monitor show suspicious betting patterns that may be indicative of match fixing.
Other names for match fixing include "game fixing", "race fixing", or more generally "sports fixing". Games that are deliberately lost are sometimes called "thrown games", especially when a team has nothing to play for (either having already qualified for the next stage of competition or in the process of being eliminated.) In contrast, when a team intentionally loses a game, or does not score as high as it can, to obtain a perceived future competitive advantage, the team is often said to have "
tanked
''Tanked'' was an American reality television series that aired on Animal Planet and premiered in August 2011. The series followed the operations of the Las Vegas-based aquarium manufacturer Acrylic Tank Manufacturing, owned by brothers-in-law Bre ...
" the game instead of having thrown it. In sports where a handicap or ranking system exists and is capable of being abused (including sports such as
racing
In sport, racing is a competition of speed, in which competitors try to complete a given task in the shortest amount of time. Typically this involves traversing some distance, but it can be any other task involving speed to reach a specific go ...
,
grappling
Grappling, in hand-to-hand combat, describes sports that consist of gripping or seizing the opponent. Grappling is used at close range to gain a physical advantage over an opponent, either by imposing a position or causing injury. Grappling is ...
and
golf
Golf is a club-and-ball sport in which players use various clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a course in as few strokes as possible.
Golf, unlike most ball games, cannot and does not use a standardized playing area, and coping ...
), tanking is known as "sandbagging".
Hustling, where a player disguises his abilities until he can play for large amounts of money, is a common practice in many
cue sports
Cue sports are a wide variety of games of skill played with a cue, which is used to strike billiard balls and thereby cause them to move around a cloth-covered table bounded by elastic bumpers known as .
There are three major subdivisions ...
, such as
nine-ball pool
Nine-ball (sometimes written 9-ball) is a discipline of the cue sport pool. The game's origins are traceable to the 1920s in the United States. It is played on a rectangular billiard table with at each of the four corners and in the middle of ...
.
Motivations and causes
Some major motivations behind match fixing are gambling and future team advantage. According to investigative journalist
Declan Hill it has also been linked to
corruption
Corruption is a form of dishonesty or a criminal offense which is undertaken by a person or an organization which is entrusted in a position of authority, in order to acquire illicit benefits or abuse power for one's personal gain. Corruption m ...
,
violence
Violence is the use of physical force so as to injure, abuse, damage, or destroy. Other definitions are also used, such as the World Health Organization's definition of violence as "the intentional use of physical force or power, threatened ...
and
tax avoidance
Tax avoidance is the legal usage of the tax regime in a single territory to one's own advantage to reduce the amount of tax that is payable by means that are within the law. A tax shelter is one type of tax avoidance, and tax havens are jurisd ...
. In Eastern Europe,
organized crime
Organized crime (or organised crime) is a category of transnational, national, or local groupings of highly centralized enterprises run by criminals to engage in illegal activity, most commonly for profit. While organized crime is generally tho ...
is linked to illegal gambling and score fixing. In Russia, people have disappeared or been murdered after acting against bribery in sports.
Agreements with gamblers
There may be financial gain through agreements with
gamblers. The
Black Sox Scandal
The Black Sox Scandal was a Major League Baseball game-fixing scandal in which eight members of the Chicago White Sox were accused of throwing the 1919 World Series against the Cincinnati Reds in exchange for money from a gambling syndicate le ...
of 1919, in which several members of the
MLB’s Chicago White Sox
The Chicago White Sox are an American professional baseball team based in Chicago. The White Sox compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) Central division. The team is owned by Jerry Reinsdorf, and ...
conspired with gamblers to fix that year’s
World Series
The World Series is the annual championship series of Major League Baseball (MLB) in the United States and Canada, contested since 1903 World Series, 1903 between the champion teams of the American League (AL) and the National League (NL). The ...
for monetary gain.
One of the best-known examples of gambling-related race fixing (in motorsports) is the 1933
Tripoli Grand Prix, in which the winning number of the lottery was determined by the number of the race-winning car. One ticket holder held the number belonging to
Achille Varzi, contacted him and agreed to share the winning should he win. Varzi contacted other drivers who agreed to share the money if they deliberately lost. Despite a poor start, Varzi won the race after his opponents deliberately underperformed throughout the race.
Better playoff chances
Many sports have tournaments where the result of one round determines their opponent in the next round. As a result, by losing a match, a team can face an easier opponent in the next round, making them more likely to win.
The
National Basketball Association
The National Basketball Association (NBA) is a professional basketball sports league, league in North America. The league is composed of 30 teams (29 in the United States and 1 in Canada) and is one of the major professional sports leagues i ...
(NBA) is the only one of the four
major professional sports leagues of the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., federal district, five ma ...
and
Canada
Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tota ...
in which home advantage in the playoffs is based strictly on regular-season record without regard to seeding. The top six teams earn an automatic playoff berth, while the seventh through tenth teams compete for the last two seeds in a “play-in tournament”.
In the
Canadian Football League
The Canadian Football League (CFL; french: Ligue canadienne de football—LCF) is a professional sports league in Canada. The CFL is the highest level of competition in Canadian football. The league consists of nine teams, each located in a ...
, since the introduction of the ''cross-over rule'',
Western
Western may refer to:
Places
*Western, Nebraska, a village in the US
* Western, New York, a town in the US
*Western Creek, Tasmania, a locality in Australia
*Western Junction, Tasmania, a locality in Australia
*Western world, countries that i ...
teams have been occasionally accused of tanking near the end of the season in situations where a loss would cause them to finish fourth place in their division and where such a finish was still good enough to secure a berth in the league's
East Division playoffs. In recent years, the East has often been viewed to be a weaker division than the West; however, if any Western team has actually attempted such a strategy, it has not paid significant dividends for them in view of the fact that, up to and including the
2014 season, Western cross-over teams have only won a single Eastern playoff game, and have never advanced to the
Grey Cup
The Grey Cup (french: Coupe Grey) is both the championship game of the Canadian Football League (CFL) and the trophy awarded to the victorious team playing in the namesake championship of professional Canadian football. The game is contested be ...
championship game from the Eastern bracket.
A more recent example of possible tanking occurred in the
ice hockey competition at the
2006 Winter Olympics. In Pool B,
Sweden was to face
Slovakia
Slovakia (; sk, Slovensko ), officially the Slovak Republic ( sk, Slovenská republika, links=no ), is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is bordered by Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east, Hungary to the south, Austria to the ...
in the last pool match for both teams. Sweden coach
Bengt-Åke Gustafsson
Bengt-Åke Gustafsson (born 23 March 1958) is a Swedish ice hockey coach and former ice hockey player. Gustafsson is a former head coach of the Sweden men's national ice hockey team, a post he held from February 2005 to May 2010.
During his ...
publicly contemplated tanking against Slovakia, knowing that if his team won, their quarterfinal opponent would either be
Canada
Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tota ...
, the
2002 gold medalists, or the
Czech Republic
The Czech Republic, or simply Czechia, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Historically known as Bohemia, it is bordered by Austria to the south, Germany to the west, Poland to the northeast, and Slovakia to the southeast. Th ...
,
1998
1998 was designated as the ''International Year of the Ocean''.
Events January
* January 6 – The ''Lunar Prospector'' spacecraft is launched into orbit around the Moon, and later finds evidence for frozen water, in soil in permanently s ...
gold medalists. Gustafsson would tell Swedish television "One is
cholera, the other
the plague
Plague or The Plague may refer to:
Agriculture, fauna, and medicine
*Plague (disease), a disease caused by ''Yersinia pestis''
* An epidemic of infectious disease (medical or agricultural)
* A pandemic caused by such a disease
* A swarm of pe ...
." Sweden lost the match 3–0; the most obvious sign of tanking was when Sweden had a five-on-three
powerplay
Power play or powerplay or their plurals may refer to:
Sports
* Power play (sporting term), a sporting term used in various games
* Powerplay (cricket), a rule concerning fielding restrictions in one-day international cricket
* Power play (cur ...
with five
NHL
The National Hockey League (NHL; french: Ligue nationale de hockey—LNH, ) is a professional ice hockey league in North America comprising 32 teams—25 in the United States and 7 in Canada. It is considered to be the top ranked professional ...
stars –
Peter Forsberg
Peter Mattias Forsberg (; born 20 July 1973) is a Swedish former professional ice hockey player and former assistant general manager of Modo Hockey. Nicknamed "Peter the Great" and "Foppa", Forsberg was known for his on-ice vision and physical pl ...
,
Mats Sundin,
Daniel Alfredsson,
Nicklas Lidström, and
Fredrik Modin – on the ice, and failed to put a shot on goal. (''
Sports Illustrated
''Sports Illustrated'' (''SI'') is an American sports magazine first published in August 1954. Founded by Stuart Scheftel, it was the first magazine with circulation over one million to win the National Magazine Award for General Excellence twice ...
'' writer Michael Farber would say about this particular powerplay, "If the Swedes had passed the puck any more, their next opponent would have been the
Washington Generals.") If he was seeking to tank, Gustafsson got his wish; Sweden would face a much less formidable quarterfinal opponent in
Switzerland. Canada would lose to
Russia
Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-eigh ...
in a quarterfinal in the opposite bracket, while Sweden went on to win the gold medal, defeating the Czechs in the semifinals.
The
1998 Tiger Cup
The 1998 AFF Championship, officially known as the 1998 Tiger Cup, was the second edition of the AFF Championship. It was held in Vietnam from 26 August to 5 September 1998.
Thailand had been the defending champions, but lost to Vietnam in the ...
– an international
football tournament contested by countries in
Southeast Asia
Southeast Asia, also spelled South East Asia and South-East Asia, and also known as Southeastern Asia, South-eastern Asia or SEA, is the geographical United Nations geoscheme for Asia#South-eastern Asia, south-eastern region of Asia, consistin ...
– saw an example of two teams trying to lose a match. The tournament was hosted by
Vietnam
Vietnam or Viet Nam ( vi, Việt Nam, ), officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam,., group="n" is a country in Southeast Asia, at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of and population of 96 million, making it ...
, with the eight countries competing split into two groups of four. The top two in each group advanced to the semi-finals with the winners playing the runners-up of the other group. In the first group,
Singapore
Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, borde ...
finished on top with
Vietnam
Vietnam or Viet Nam ( vi, Việt Nam, ), officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam,., group="n" is a country in Southeast Asia, at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of and population of 96 million, making it ...
finishing second; this meant that the winners of the second group would have to travel to
Hanoi
Hanoi or Ha Noi ( or ; vi, Hà Nội ) is the capital and second-largest city of Vietnam. It covers an area of . It consists of 12 urban districts, one district-leveled town and 17 rural districts. Located within the Red River Delta, Hanoi i ...
to play the host nation in the national stadium on their national day, while the runners-up would face Singapore in
Ho Chi Minh City
, population_density_km2 = 4,292
, population_density_metro_km2 = 697.2
, population_demonym = Saigonese
, blank_name = GRP (Nominal)
, blank_info = 2019
, blank1_name = – Total
, blank1_ ...
where the final group match was taking place. As the two teams involved –
Thailand
Thailand ( ), historically known as Siam () and officially the Kingdom of Thailand, is a country in Southeast Asia, located at the centre of the Indochinese Peninsula, spanning , with a population of almost 70 million. The country is b ...
and
Indonesia
Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guine ...
– had both already qualified for the semi-finals, it was in both teams' interest to lose the match and finish in second place. As the game progressed, neither side seemed particularly concerned with scoring, while the defending was lackadaisical. As the match entered stoppage time, Indonesian defender
Mursyid Effendi scored an
own goal
An own goal, also called a self goal, is where a player performs actions that result in them or their team scoring a goal on themselves, often resulting in a point for the opposing team, such as when a football player kicks a ball into their own ...
, overcoming the efforts of several Thai players and the goalkeeper to stop him. Both teams were fined $40,000, and Effendi was banned from international football for life.
In the final month of the
2010 Major League Baseball season
The 2010 Major League Baseball season began April 4, with the regular season ending on October 3. The 2010 All-Star Game was played on July 13 at Angel Stadium of Anaheim in Anaheim, California. The National League ended a 13-game winless stre ...
, the
New York Yankees
The New York Yankees are an American professional baseball team based in the New York City borough of the Bronx. The Yankees compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) East division. They are one o ...
and
Tampa Bay Rays
The Tampa Bay Rays are an American professional baseball team based in St. Petersburg, Florida. The Rays compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) East division. Since its inception, the team's home v ...
were in a tight race for the
American League East
The American League East is one of Major League Baseball's six divisions. MLB consists of an East, Central, and West division for each of its two 15-team leagues, the American League (AL) and National League (NL). This division was created before ...
division title and by the final week, both teams had already clinched at least the wild card. The Yankees went 3–7 over the final 10 games, losing their regular-season finale, while the Rays went 5–5 and won theirs, giving the Rays the AL East title by one game and the Yankees the AL wild card berth. Winning the division would have given New York an ALDS matchup against the
Texas Rangers, who at the time had star pitcher
Cliff Lee; the Yankees instead defeated the
Minnesota Twins
The Minnesota Twins are an American professional baseball team based in Minneapolis. The Twins compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) Central Division. The team is named after the Twin Cities area ...
, a team they historically have had more postseason success against. Allegations of the Yankees purposefully settling for the wild card, presumably to avoid facing Texas in the ALDS, began to surface after the Yankees defeated the Twins. Additional allegations came up in 2012, when Yankees general manager
Brian Cashman commented in response to a possible playoff expansion that his team had “conceded the division” and that winning it meant “nothing more than a T-shirt and a hat”. In 2012, Major League Baseball added a second wild card in each league, with the two wild cards playing a single-elimination game in order to give more importance to winning the division. In 2022, the postseason was further expanded, adding a third wild card and making the round a best-of-three series.
The
2012 Summer Olympics saw two examples of tanking of this type:
* Members of four
badminton
Badminton is a racquet sport played using racket (sports equipment), racquets to hit a shuttlecock across a net (device), net. Although it may be played with larger teams, the most common forms of the game are "singles" (with one player per s ...
teams from
China,
Indonesia
Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guine ...
and
South Korea
South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia, constituting the southern part of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and sharing a Korean Demilitarized Zone, land border with North Korea. Its western border is formed ...
were ejected from the women's doubles tournament for intentionally losing matches to allow better pairings in the knockout stages of the competition. In what the BBC called a “night of shame,” players made simple errors throughout the match, despite booing and jeering from the crowd, and warnings from the match umpire and tournament referee to cease and desist. The
Badminton World Federation
The Badminton World Federation (BWF) is the international governing body for the sport of badminton recognised by the International Olympic Committee (IOC). It was founded in 1934 as the International Badminton Federation (IBF) with nine member ...
found the four pairs guilty of “not using one’s best efforts to win a match” and “conducting oneself in a manner that is clearly abusive or detrimental to the sport.”
* In the
women's football tournament,
Japan intentionally played a draw with
South Africa
South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring count ...
in
Cardiff
Cardiff (; cy, Caerdydd ) is the capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of Wales. It forms a Principal areas of Wales, principal area, officially known as the City and County of Cardiff ( cy, Dinas a ...
, allowing it to finish second in its group so it would not have to travel to
Glasgow
Glasgow ( ; sco, Glesca or ; gd, Glaschu ) is the most populous city in Scotland and the fourth-most populous city in the United Kingdom, as well as being the 27th largest city by population in Europe. In 2020, it had an estimated pop ...
, more than 300 miles away, for the first round of the knockout stage. Instead, Japan remained in Cardiff and defeated
Brazil
Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...
in their quarterfinal en route to the gold medal match.
Tanking can also happen in high-school level sports. For example, In February 2015, two girls' basketball teams representing
Nashville
Nashville is the capital city of the U.S. state of Tennessee and the seat of Davidson County. With a population of 689,447 at the 2020 U.S. census, Nashville is the most populous city in the state, 21st most-populous city in the U.S., and t ...
-area
Riverdale and
Smyrna High Schools were found to be tanking during a consolation match of their district tournament.
The winner of the game would enter the same side of the regional tournament bracket as defending state champion
[ Blackman High School (ranked as one of the country's top 10 teams by some national publications), setting up a potential match in the regional semifinals.] The loser would thus avoid Blackman until the regional final, a game whose participants would both advance to the sectional tournament (one step short of the state tournament).[ During the game both teams pulled their starters early, missed shots on purpose, intentionally turned over the ball and deliberately committed fouls.][ The Tennessee Secondary School Athletic Association, which governs high school sports in the state, ejected both teams from the postseason, fined the two schools (Riverdale $1,000 and Smyrna $500), and placed both teams on probation through the 2015–16 school year.][
On the other hand, the practice of coaches on a playoff-bound team deliberately benching a team's best players for some or all of the final match(es) of the regular season is often defended as a common sense measure to avoid unnecessarily risking injuries and fatigue to the team's star players.
Some argue that a coach should not only have the right to select a starting lineup for a match that gives the team the best chances of winning titles in the long should this be a different lineup than the one that gives the team the best chances of winning the game at but that doing so is the smartest course of action.
For example, during Euro 2004 the ]Czech Republic
The Czech Republic, or simply Czechia, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Historically known as Bohemia, it is bordered by Austria to the south, Germany to the west, Poland to the northeast, and Slovakia to the southeast. Th ...
rested nearly all of its starters from the first two group matches for the final group match against Germany
Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG),, is a country in Central Europe. It is the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany lies between the Baltic and North Sea to the north and the Alps to the sou ...
. Since the Czechs had already clinched first place in the group, this move was seen to have the potential to allow Germany a better chance to get the win they needed to advance at the expense of the winner of the Netherlands
)
, anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau")
, image_map =
, map_caption =
, subdivision_type = Sovereign state
, subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands
, established_title = Before independence
, established_date = Spanish Netherl ...
–Latvia
Latvia ( or ; lv, Latvija ; ltg, Latveja; liv, Leţmō), officially the Republic of Latvia ( lv, Latvijas Republika, links=no, ltg, Latvejas Republika, links=no, liv, Leţmō Vabāmō, links=no), is a country in the Baltic region of ...
game. As it happened, the Czechs' decision to field a "weaker" side did not matter since the Czechs won the match anyway to eliminate the Germans.
Better draft position
Most top-level sports leagues in North America and Australia hold drafts to allocate young players to the league's teams. The order in which teams select players is often the inverse of their standings in the previous season. As a result, a team may have a significant incentive to tank games to secure a higher pick in the league's next draft, and a number of leagues have changed their draft rules to remove (or at least limit) potential incentives to tank.
From 1966 to 1984
Events
January
* January 1 – The Bornean Sultanate of Brunei gains full independence from the United Kingdom, having become a British protectorate in 1888.
* January 7 – Brunei becomes the sixth member of the Association of Southeast As ...
, the NBA used a coin flip between the teams with the worst records in each of the league's two conferences to determine the recipient of the top pick. In the , several teams were accused of deliberately losing games in an attempt to gain a top position in the 1984 draft, which would eventually produce four Hall of Fame players. As a result of this, the NBA established a draft lottery in advance of the 1985 draft, involving all teams that did not make the playoffs in the previous season. This lottery system prevented teams from receiving fixed draft positions based on record place, which the league hoped would discourage them from deliberately losing.
Even though the lottery in place through the 2018 draft gave the team with the worst record only the same chance at the top pick as the 2nd and 3rd worst teams (with that team guaranteed no worse than the fourth pick), there was still perceived incentive for a team to tank. Responding to these perceived incentives, the NBA further tweaked its lottery rules shortly before the start of the 2017–18 season. Effective with the 2019 draft, the teams with the three worst records have equal odds of landing the #1 pick (barring one of these teams also owning another lottery team's pick), and the top four picks are allocated in the lottery instead of the top three. This limits but does not eliminate the incentive to tank, particularly when there is at least one exceptional prospect.
The Australian Football League, the main competition of Australian rules football, has used a system of priority draft picks since 1993
File:1993 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The Oslo I Accord is signed in an attempt to resolve the Israeli–Palestinian conflict; The Russian White House is shelled during the 1993 Russian constitutional crisis; Czechoslovakia is peace ...
, with poorly performing teams receiving extra selections at or near the start of the draft. Prior to 2012, a team automatically received a priority pick if its win–loss record met pre-defined eligibility criteria. However, that system led to accusations of tanking by several clubs—most notably by Melbourne in 2009 (the club was found not guilty, but the head coach and general manager were found guilty on related charges). Since 2012, priority picks are awarded at the discretion of the AFL Commission, the governing body of both the AFL and the overall sport.
Until the 2014–15 NHL season, the National Hockey League
The National Hockey League (NHL; french: Ligue nationale de hockey—LNH, ) is a professional ice hockey sports league, league in North America comprising 32 teams—25 in the United States and 7 in Canada. It is considered to be the top ranke ...
assured the last place team of at least the second position in its entry draft, with the first overall pick being subject to a draft lottery among the five worst teams. As NHL drafts typically include only one NHL-ready prospect, if any at all, in any given year (most others must continue developing in junior ice hockey or the minor league
Minor leagues are professional sports leagues which are not regarded as the premier leagues in those sports. Minor league teams tend to play in smaller, less elaborate venues, often competing in smaller cities/markets. This term is used in N ...
s for several years before reaching the NHL), this rudimentary lottery has historically been enough of a deterrent to avoid deliberate tanking. However, in 2014–15, two elite prospects widely considered to be “generational talents,” Connor McDavid
Connor Andrew McDavid (born January 13, 1997) is a Canadian professional ice hockey centre and captain of the Edmonton Oilers of the National Hockey League (NHL). The Oilers selected him first overall in the 2015 NHL Entry Draft.
McDavid ...
and Jack Eichel, were projected to enter the 2015 NHL Entry Draft, thus ensuring the last place team at least one of the two prospects. This was most prominent with the Buffalo Sabres
The Buffalo Sabres are a professional ice hockey team based in Buffalo, New York. The Sabres compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Atlantic Division (NHL), Atlantic Division in the Eastern Conference (NHL), Eastern Conf ...
, whose fans openly rooted against their team in the hopes they would clinch last place in the league for much of the season (the Sabres themselves denied they were tanking and openly criticized their fans for suggesting the notion). Beginning in 2015–16, the top three picks in the draft are subject to lottery, with all fourteen teams that did not qualify for the playoffs eligible to win the picks. However, as the worst team is guaranteed one of the first three picks, tanking is still contemplated when the draft field is deep.
More favorable schedule next year
NFL teams have been accused of tanking games to obtain a more favorable schedule the following season; this was especially true between 1977 and 1993, when a team finishing last in a five-team division would get to play four of its eight non-division matches the next season against other last-place teams.
In the current scheduling formula which has been in place since 2002 and slightly amended in 2021, only three games in a team's schedule are dependent on a team's placement the previous season. The remaining eight non-division games are the same for all teams in a division.
Match fixing by referees
In addition to the match fixing that is committed by players, coaches and/or team officials, it is not unheard of to have results manipulated by corrupt referee
A referee is an official, in a variety of sports and competition, responsible for enforcing the rules of the sport, including sportsmanship decisions such as ejection. The official tasked with this job may be known by a variety of other tit ...
s. Since 2004, separate scandal
A scandal can be broadly defined as the strong social reactions of outrage, anger, or surprise, when accusations or rumours circulate or appear for some reason, regarding a person or persons who are perceived to have transgressed in some way. Th ...
s have erupted in prominent sports leagues in Portugal, Germany ( Bundesliga scandal), Brazil ( Brazilian football match-fixing scandal) and the United States (see Tim Donaghy scandal), all of which concerned referees who fixed matches for gamblers. Many sports writers have speculated that in leagues with high player salaries, it is far more likely for a referee to become corrupt since their pay in such competitions is usually much less than that of the players.
On December 2, 1896, former Old West
The American frontier, also known as the Old West or the Wild West, encompasses the geography, history, folklore, and culture associated with the forward wave of American expansion in mainland North America that began with European colonial ...
lawman Wyatt Earp
Wyatt Berry Stapp Earp (March 19, 1848 – January 13, 1929) was an American lawman and gambler in the American West, including Dodge City, Deadwood, and Tombstone. Earp took part in the famous gunfight at the O.K. Corral, during which la ...
refereed the Fitzsimmons vs. Sharkey boxing match, promoted as the Heavyweight Championship of the World. Earp was chosen as referee by the National Athletic Association the afternoon of the match after both managers refused to agree on a choice. In the eighth round of a fight dominated by Fitzsimmons, Sharkey suddenly went down, clutching his groin, yelling foul. Referee Earp conferred with both corners for a few seconds before he disqualified Fitzsimmons for a foul that virtually no one saw. Fitzsimmons went to court to attempt to stop Sharkey from taking the purse, but failed when the court ruled that the match was illegal and it had no jurisdiction.
Eight years later, Dr. B. Brookes Lee was arrested in Portland, Oregon. He had been accused of treating Sharkey to make it appear that he had been fouled by Fitzsimmons. Lee said, "I fixed Sharkey up to look as if he had been fouled. How? Well, that is something I do not care to reveal, but I will assert that it was done—that is enough. There is no doubt that Fitzsimmons was entitled to the decision and did not foul Sharkey. I got $1,000 for my part in the affair."
Match fixing to a draw or a fixed score
Match fixing does not necessarily involve deliberately losing a match. Occasionally, teams have been accused of deliberately playing to a draw or a fixed score where this ensures some mutual benefit (e.g. both teams advancing to the next stage of a competition.) One of the earliest examples of this sort of match fixing in the modern era occurred in 1898
Events
January–March
* January 1 – New York City annexes land from surrounding counties, creating the City of Greater New York as the world's second largest. The city is geographically divided into five boroughs: Manhattan, B ...
when Stoke City
Stoke City Football Club is a professional football club based in Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, England, which competes in the . Founded as Stoke Ramblers in 1863, it changed its name to Stoke in 1878 and then to Stoke City in 1925 after Sto ...
and Burnley
Burnley () is a town and the administrative centre of the wider Borough of Burnley in Lancashire, England, with a 2001 population of 73,021. It is north of Manchester and east of Preston, at the confluence of the River Calder and River ...
intentionally drew in that year's final "test match" so as to ensure they were both in the First Division the next season. In response, the Football League
The English Football League (EFL) is a league of professional football clubs from England and Wales. Founded in 1888 as the Football League, the league is the oldest such competition in the world. It was the top-level football league in Engla ...
expanded the divisions to 18 teams that year, thus permitting the intended victims of the fix (Newcastle United
Newcastle United Football Club is an English professional Association football, football club, based in Newcastle upon Tyne, that plays in the Premier League – the top flight of English football league system, English football. The club was ...
and Blackburn Rovers
Blackburn Rovers Football Club is a professional football club, based in Blackburn, Lancashire, England, which competes in the , the second tier of the English football league system. They have played home matches at Ewood Park since 1890. T ...
) to remain in the First Division. The "test match" system was abandoned and replaced with automatic relegation
In sports leagues, promotion and relegation is a process where teams are transferred between multiple divisions based on their performance for the completed season. Leagues that use promotion and relegation systems are often called open league ...
.
A more recent example occurred in the 1982 FIFA World Cup
The 1982 FIFA World Cup was the 12th FIFA World Cup, a quadrennial football tournament for men's senior national teams, and was played in Spain between 13 June and 11 July 1982. The tournament was won by Italy, who defeated West Germany 3–1 i ...
, West Germany
West Germany is the colloquial term used to indicate the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG; german: Bundesrepublik Deutschland , BRD) between its formation on 23 May 1949 and the German reunification through the accession of East Germany on 3 O ...
played Austria
Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...
in the last match of group B. A West German victory by 1 or 2 goals would result in both teams advancing; any less and Germany was out; any more and Austria was out (and replaced by Algeria
)
, image_map = Algeria (centered orthographic projection).svg
, map_caption =
, image_map2 =
, capital = Algiers
, coordinates =
, largest_city = capital
, religi ...
, who had just beaten Chile). West Germany attacked hard and scored after 10 minutes. Afterwards, the players then proceeded to just kick the ball around aimlessly for the remainder of the match. Algerian supporters were so angered that they waved banknotes at the players, while a German fan burned his German flag in disgust. By the second half, the ARD commentator Eberhard Stanjek refused any further comment on the game, while the Austrian television commentator Robert Seeger advised viewers to switch off their sets. As a result, FIFA changed its tournament scheduling for subsequent World Cups so that the final pair of matches in each group are played simultaneously.
Another example took place on the next-to-last weekend of the 1992–93 Serie A season. Milan
Milan ( , , Lombard language, Lombard: ; it, Milano ) is a city in northern Italy, capital of Lombardy, and the List of cities in Italy, second-most populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of about 1.4  ...
entered their match with Brescia
Brescia (, locally ; lmo, link=no, label= Lombard, Brèsa ; lat, Brixia; vec, Bressa) is a city and ''comune'' in the region of Lombardy, Northern Italy. It is situated at the foot of the Alps, a few kilometers from the lakes Garda and Ise ...
needing only a point to secure the title ahead of crosstown rivals Inter, while Brescia believed a point would be enough for them to avoid relegation. In a 2004 retrospective on the "dodgiest games" in football history, two British journalists said about the match, "For over 80 minutes, the two teams engaged in a shameful game of cat-and-mouse, in which the cat appeared to have fallen asleep and the mouse was on tranquilisers." Milan scored in the 82nd minute, but Brescia "mysteriously found themselves with a huge overlap" and equalised two minutes later. The 1–1 draw gave Milan their title, but in the end did not help Brescia; other results went against them and they suffered the drop.
In knockout competitions where the rules require drawn matches to be replayed, teams have sometimes been accused of intentionally playing one or more draws so as to ensure replays. In this case, the motive is usually financial since the ensuing replay(s) would typically be expected to generate additional revenue for the participating teams. One notorious example of this particular type of alleged fix was the 1909 Scottish Cup Final, which sparked a riot after being played twice to a draw.
Intentional loss to prejudice third-party rival
A team may deliberately lose a match, giving a victory to the opposing team that damages a third-party rival. An example of this occurred in Sevilla
Seville (; es, Sevilla, ) is the capital and largest city of the Spanish autonomous community of Andalusia and the province of Seville. It is situated on the lower reaches of the River Guadalquivir, in the southwest of the Iberian Peninsul ...
, Spain
, image_flag = Bandera de España.svg
, image_coat = Escudo de España (mazonado).svg
, national_motto = '' Plus ultra'' ( Latin)(English: "Further Beyond")
, national_anthem = (English: "Royal March")
, ...
, during the 1999–2000 La Liga
The 1999–2000 La Liga season, the 69th since its establishment, began on 21 August 1999 and ended on 20 May 2000. Deportivo La Coruña won their first league title with 69 points, the lowest for a champion since three points for a win was intr ...
. Sevilla FC
Sevilla Fútbol Club () is a Spanish professional football club based in Seville, the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Andalusia, Spain. It plays in Spanish football's top flight, La Liga. Sevilla have won the UEFA Eu ...
were in last place and were already officially relegated
In sports leagues, promotion and relegation is a process where teams are transferred between multiple divisions based on their performance for the completed season. Leagues that use promotion and relegation systems are often called open leagues. ...
. In their thirty-fifth match of the season (out of 38), Sevilla faced Real Oviedo of Asturias
Asturias (, ; ast, Asturies ), officially the Principality of Asturias ( es, Principado de Asturias; ast, Principáu d'Asturies; Galician-Asturian: ''Principao d'Asturias''), is an autonomous community in northwest Spain.
It is coextensi ...
, which was itself fighting to avoid relegation. An Oviedo victory would put Sevilla's fierce cross-town rival, Real Betis
Real Betis Balompié, known as Real Betis () or just Betis, is a Spanish professional football club based in Seville in the autonomous community of Andalusia. Founded in 1907, it plays in La Liga. It holds home games at the Estadio Benito Vi ...
, in the relegation zone. Sevilla performed poorly, while their fans showed support for Oviedo and expressed concern for missed scoring chances by the Asturian side. Oviedo defeated Sevilla 3–2, contributing to the eventual relegation of Betis. Twelve years later, former Sevilla goalkeeper Frode Olsen admitted the team had lost intentionally in order to relegate Betis.
Similarly, a National Football League
The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the ma ...
(NFL) team has also been accused of throwing its final regular-season game in an attempt to keep a rival out of the playoffs. An alleged example of this was when the San Francisco 49ers
The San Francisco 49ers (also written as the San Francisco Forty-Niners) are a professional American football team based in the San Francisco Bay Area. The 49ers compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the league's National ...
, who had clinched a playoff berth, lost their regular-season finale in 1988 to the Los Angeles Rams
The Los Angeles Rams are a professional American football team based in the Greater Los Angeles, Los Angeles metropolitan area. The Rams compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the National Football Conference (NFC) NFC Wes ...
, thereby knocking the New York Giants
The New York Giants are a professional American football team based in the New York metropolitan area. The Giants compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) East divisio ...
(who had defeated the 49ers in the playoffs in both 1985 and 1986, moreover injuring 49ers quarterback Joe Montana
Joseph Clifford Montana Jr. (born June 11, 1956) is an American former football quarterback who played in the National Football League (NFL) for 16 seasons, primarily with the San Francisco 49ers. Nicknamed "Joe Cool" and "the Comeback Kid ...
in the latter) out of the postseason on tiebreakers; after the game, Giants quarterback Phil Simms
Phillip Martin Simms (born November 3, 1955) is an American former football quarterback who spent his entire 15-year professional career playing for the New York Giants of the National Football League (NFL). He is currently a television spor ...
angrily accused the 49ers of "laying down like dogs."
Increased gate receipts
In addition to the aforementioned incidents of alleged fixing of drawn matches to ensure replays, mutual fixes have sometimes been alleged in "best of X" knockout series where draws are either not possible or very uncommon. Early versions of baseball's World Series
The World Series is the annual championship series of Major League Baseball (MLB) in the United States and Canada, contested since 1903 World Series, 1903 between the champion teams of the American League (AL) and the National League (NL). The ...
were a common target of such allegations. Because the players received a percentage of the gate receipts for postseason games (a privilege they did not enjoy in the regular season), there was a perception that the players had an incentive to fix an equal number of early games in favor of each team so as to ensure the series would run the maximum number of games (or very close thereto).
Partly as an effort to avoid this sort of controversy, early World Series sometimes saw all scheduled games played even if the Series winner was already determined. That did not prove satisfactory since few fans were willing to pay to watch lame duck contests. Eventually, following the controversy at the
conclusion of the 1904 season in which the New York Giants
The New York Giants are a professional American football team based in the New York metropolitan area. The Giants compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) East divisio ...
boycotted the World Series in part because of dissatisfaction with the financial arrangements surrounding the Series, Major League Baseball agreed to a number of reforms proposed by Giants owner John T. Brush. Among other things, the so-called "Brush Rules" stipulated that the players would only receive a share of ticket revenue from the first four games, thus eliminating any financial incentive for the players to deliberately prolong the World Series.
Abuse of tie-breaking rules
On several occasions, creative use of tie-breaking rules have allegedly led teams to play less than their best.
An example occurred in the 2004 European Football Championship. Unlike FIFA, UEFA
Union of European Football Associations (UEFA ; french: Union des associations européennes de football; german: Union der europäischen Fußballverbände) is one of six continental bodies of governance in association football. It governs foo ...
takes the result of the game between the two tied teams (or in a three-way tie, the overall records of the games played with the teams in question only) into consideration before overall goal difference
Goal difference, goal differential or points difference is a form of tiebreaker used to rank sport teams which finish on equal points in a league competition. Either "goal difference" or "points difference" is used, depending on whether matches a ...
when ranking teams level on points. A situation arose in Group C where Sweden and Denmark
)
, song = ( en, "King Christian stood by the lofty mast")
, song_type = National and royal anthem
, image_map = EU-Denmark.svg
, map_caption =
, subdivision_type = Sovereign state
, subdivision_name = Kingdom of Denmark
, establishe ...
played to a 2–2 draw, which was a sufficiently high scoreline to eliminate Italy
Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...
(which had lower-scoring draws with the Swedes and Danes) regardless of Italy's result with already-eliminated Bulgaria
Bulgaria (; bg, България, Bǎlgariya), officially the Republic of Bulgaria,, ) is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the eastern flank of the Balkans, and is bordered by Romania to the north, Serbia and North Mac ...
. Although Italy beat Bulgaria by only one goal to finish level with Sweden and Denmark on five points and would hypothetically have been eliminated using the FIFA tie-breaker too, some Italian fans bitterly contended that the FIFA tie-breaker would have motivated their team to play harder and deterred their Scandinavia
Scandinavia; Sámi languages: /. ( ) is a subregion in Northern Europe, with strong historical, cultural, and linguistic ties between its constituent peoples. In English usage, ''Scandinavia'' most commonly refers to Denmark, Norway, and Swe ...
n rivals from, in their view, at the very least half-heartedly playing out the match after the score became 2–2. The same situation happened to Italy in 2012, leading to many pre-game complaints from Italy, who many commentators suggested were right to be concerned because of their own extensive experience in this area. However, Spain-Croatia ended in a 1–0 win for Spain, and the Italians went through.
The FIFA tie-breaker, or any goal-differential scheme, can cause problems, too. There have been incidents (especially in basketball
Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular court, compete with the primary objective of shooting a basketball (approximately in diameter) through the defender's h ...
) where players on a favored team have won the game but deliberately ensured the quoted point spread
Spread betting is any of various types of wagering on the outcome of an event where the pay-off is based on the accuracy of the wager, rather than a simple "win or lose" outcome, such as fixed-odds (or money-line) betting or parimutuel betting. ...
was not covered (see point shaving). Conversely, there are cases where a team not only lost (which might be honest) but lost by some large amount, perhaps to ensure a point spread was covered, or to grant some non-gambling related favor to the victor. Perhaps the most famous alleged example was the match between Argentina and Peru in the 1978 FIFA World Cup
The 1978 FIFA World Cup was the 11th edition of the FIFA World Cup, a quadrennial international football world championship tournament among the men's senior national teams. It was held in Argentina between 1 and 25 June.
The Cup was won by ...
. Argentina needed a four-goal victory over Peru in order to advance over Brazil, a large margin at this level of competition, yet Argentina won 6–0. Much was made over possible political collusion, that the Peruvian goalkeeper was born in Argentina, and that Peru was dependent on Argentinian grain shipments, but nothing was ever proven.
Although the Denmark–Sweden game above led to calls for UEFA to adopt FIFA's tiebreaking formula for future tournaments, it is not clear if this solves the problem; the Argentina-Peru game shows a possible abuse of the FIFA tie-breaker. Proponents of the UEFA tie-breaker argue that it reduces the value of ''blow-outs'', whether these be the result of a much stronger team ''running up the score'' or an already-eliminated side allowing an unusually large number of goals. Perhaps the most infamous incident occurred in December 1983 when Spain
, image_flag = Bandera de España.svg
, image_coat = Escudo de España (mazonado).svg
, national_motto = '' Plus ultra'' ( Latin)(English: "Further Beyond")
, national_anthem = (English: "Royal March")
, ...
, needing to win by eleven goals to qualify for the Euro 1984 ahead of the Netherlands
)
, anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau")
, image_map =
, map_caption =
, subdivision_type = Sovereign state
, subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands
, established_title = Before independence
, established_date = Spanish Netherl ...
, defeated Malta
Malta ( , , ), officially the Republic of Malta ( mt, Repubblika ta' Malta ), is an island country in the Mediterranean Sea. It consists of an archipelago, between Italy and Libya, and is often considered a part of Southern Europe. It lies ...
by a score of 12–1 on the strength of ''nine'' second half goals. Especially in international football International football generally refers to association football matches between representative national teams carried out under the regulation of the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA). It can also refer to :
* International ...
, such lopsided results are seen as unsavoury, even if they are honest. If anything, these incidents serves as evidence that the FIFA tie-breaker can cause incentives to perpetrate a fix in some circumstances, the UEFA tie-breaker in others.
Tie-breaking rules played the central role in one of cricket
Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by st ...
's more notorious matches. In a 1979 match
A match is a tool for starting a fire. Typically, matches are made of small wooden sticks or stiff paper. One end is coated with a material that can be ignited by friction generated by striking the match against a suitable surface. Wooden matc ...
in England's now-defunct Benson & Hedges Cup
The Benson & Hedges Cup was a one-day cricket competition for first-class counties in England and Wales that was held from 1972 to 2002, one of cricket's longest sponsorship deals.
It was the third major one-day competition established in Englan ...
, a one-day league, Worcestershire
Worcestershire ( , ; written abbreviation: Worcs) is a county in the West Midlands of England. The area that is now Worcestershire was absorbed into the unified Kingdom of England in 927, at which time it was constituted as a county (see H ...
hosted Somerset
( en, All The People of Somerset)
, locator_map =
, coordinates =
, region = South West England
, established_date = Ancient
, established_by =
, preceded_by =
, origin =
, lord_lieutenant_office =Lord Lieutenant of Somerset
, lor ...
in the final group match for both sides. Going into that match, Somerset led their group with three wins from three matches, but would end in a three-way tie for the top spot if they lost to Worcestershire and Glamorgan defeated the then-winless Minor Counties South. In that event, the tie-breaker would be bowling strike rate. The Somerset players calculated that a large enough loss could see them miss the quarter-finals. Accordingly, Somerset captain Brian Rose determined that if Somerset batted first and declared their innings closed after one over, they would protect their strike rate advantage, assuring advancement to the quarter-finals. When Somerset won the toss, Rose implemented the plan, batting in the first partnership and declaring at the close of the first over after Somerset scored only one run on a no-ball. Worcestershire won during their second over. Rose's strategy, although not against the letter of the rules, was condemned by media and cricket officials, and the Test and County Cricket Board
The Test and County Cricket Board (TCCB) was the governing body for Test and county cricket in Great Britain between 1968 and 1996. The TCCB was established in 1968 to replace the functions of the Board of Control for Test Matches (established ...
(predecessor to the current England and Wales Cricket Board) voted to expel Somerset from that season's competition.
Prize sharing
A player can concede with the understanding that the opponent will share the prize equally with him or her. Depending on the game, this can lead to disqualification.
Protest action
On occasion, teams tank games as a protest against actions in earlier games. The most lopsided professional football match in history, AS Adema 149–0 SO l'Emyrne
AS Adema 149–0 SO l'Emyrne was a football match played on 31 October 2002 between two teams in Toamasina, Madagascar. It holds the world record for the highest scoreline in any football match, recognised by '' The Guinness Book of Records' ...
, was a result of SO l'Emyrne intentionally losing the game in protest against the referee's action in a previous game.
Individual performance in team sports
Bookmakers in the early 21st century accept bets on a far wider range of sports-related propositions than ever before. Thus, a gambling-motivated fix might not necessarily involve any direct attempt to influence the outright result, especially in team sports in which such a fix would require the co-operation (and prerequisitely the knowledge) of many people and/or perhaps would be more likely to arouse suspicion. Fixing the result of a more-particular proposition might be seen as less likely to be noticed. For example, the disgraced former National Basketball Association
The National Basketball Association (NBA) is a professional basketball sports league, league in North America. The league is composed of 30 teams (29 in the United States and 1 in Canada) and is one of the major professional sports leagues i ...
referee Tim Donaghy has been alleged to have perpetrated some of his fixes by calling games in such a manner as to ensure more points than expected were scored by both teams, thus affecting " over-under" bets on the games whilst also ensuring that Donaghy at least did not look to be outright bias
Bias is a disproportionate weight ''in favor of'' or ''against'' an idea or thing, usually in a way that is closed-minded, prejudicial, or unfair. Biases can be innate or learned. People may develop biases for or against an individual, a group ...
ed. Also, bets are increasingly being taken on individual performances in team sporting events, which, in turn, has seen the rise of a phenomenon known as spot fixing although it is now unlikely that enough is bet on average players to allow someone to place a substantial wager on them without being noticed.
One such attempt was described by retired footballer Matthew Le Tissier
Matthew Paul Le Tissier (; born 14 October 1968) is a former professional footballer. Born in Guernsey, he won eight caps for the England national team.
Le Tissier spent his entire professional club career with Southampton before turning to n ...
, who in 2009 admitted that while he was playing with Southampton FC back in 1995, he tried (and failed) to kick the ball out of play right after the kick-off of a Premier League
The Premier League (legal name: The Football Association Premier League Limited) is the highest level of the men's English football league system. Contested by 20 clubs, it operates on a system of promotion and relegation with the English Foo ...
match against Wimbledon FC so that a group of associates would collect on a wager made on an early throw-in.
Similarly, in 2010, Pakistani cricket players were accused of committing specific no-ball
In cricket, a no-ball is a type of illegal delivery to a batter (the other type being a wide). It is also a type of extra, being the run awarded to the batting team as a consequence of the illegal delivery. For most cricket games, especially ...
penalties for the benefit of gamblers. The scandal centred on three Pakistani players accepting bribes from a bookmaker, Mazhar Majeed, during the Lord's test match against England. Following investigations by the News of the World and Scotland Yard, on 1 November 2011, Majeed, Pakistan's captain, Salman Butt, Mohammad Asif and Mohammad Amir were found guilty of conspiracy to cheat at gambling and to accept corrupt payments.
As a result, all three of the players were banned by the International Cricket Council
The International Cricket Council (ICC) is the world governing body of cricket. Headquartered in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, its members are List of International Cricket Council members, 108 national associations, with 12 List of Internation ...
(ICC): Butt for ten years, Asif for seven and Amir for five. On 3 November 2011, jail terms were handed down of 30 months for Butt, one year for Asif, six months for Amir and two years eight months for Majeed.
Effect of non-gambling-motivated fixing on wagering
Whenever any serious motivation for teams to manipulate results becomes apparent to the general public, there can be a corresponding effect on betting markets as honest gamblers speculate in good faith
In human interactions, good faith ( la, bona fides) is a sincere intention to be fair, open, and honest, regardless of the outcome of the interaction. Some Latin phrases have lost their literal meaning over centuries, but that is not the case ...
as to the chance such a fix might be attempted. Some bettors might choose to avoid wagering on such a fixture while others will be motivated to wager on it, or alter the bet they would otherwise place. Such actions will invariably affect odds and point spread
Spread betting is any of various types of wagering on the outcome of an event where the pay-off is based on the accuracy of the wager, rather than a simple "win or lose" outcome, such as fixed-odds (or money-line) betting or parimutuel betting. ...
s even if there is no contact whatsoever between teams and the relevant gambling interests. The rise of betting exchanges has allowed such speculation to play out in real time.
History
Evidence of match fixing has been found throughout recorded history, and the history of match fixing is closely related to the history of illegal gambling.
The ancient Olympic Games were almost constantly dealing with allegations of athlete
An athlete (also sportsman or sportswoman) is a person who competes in one or more sports that involve physical strength, speed, or endurance.
Athletes may be professionals or amateurs. Most professional athletes have particularly well-dev ...
s accepting bribes to lose a competition and city-states
A city-state is an independent sovereign city which serves as the center of political, economic, and cultural life over its contiguous territory. They have existed in many parts of the world since the dawn of history, including cities such as ...
which often tried to manipulate the outcome with large amounts of money. These activities went on despite the oath
Traditionally an oath (from Anglo-Saxon ', also called plight) is either a statement of fact or a promise taken by a sacrality as a sign of verity. A common legal substitute for those who conscientiously object to making sacred oaths is to g ...
each athlete took to protect the integrity of the events and the severe punishment sometimes inflicted on those who were caught. Chariot racing
Chariot racing ( grc-gre, ἁρματοδρομία, harmatodromia, la, ludi circenses) was one of the most popular ancient Greek, Roman, and Byzantine sports. In Greece, chariot racing played an essential role in aristocratic funeral games ...
was also dogged by race fixing throughout its history.
By the end of the 19th century gambling was illegal in most jurisdictions, but that did not stop its widespread practice. Boxing
Boxing (also known as "Western boxing" or "pugilism") is a combat sport in which two people, usually wearing protective gloves and other protective equipment such as hand wraps and mouthguards, throw punches at each other for a predetermine ...
soon became rife with fighters "taking a dive", likely due to boxing being a sport involving individual competitors, which makes its matches much easier to fix without getting caught. Baseball
Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding ...
also became plagued by match fixing despite efforts by the National League
The National League of Professional Baseball Clubs, known simply as the National League (NL), is the older of two leagues constituting Major League Baseball (MLB) in the United States and Canada, and the world's oldest extant professional team ...
to stop gambling at its games. Matters finally came to a head in 1919 when eight members of the Chicago White Sox
The Chicago White Sox are an American professional baseball team based in Chicago. The White Sox compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) Central division. The team is owned by Jerry Reinsdorf, and ...
threw the World Series
The World Series is the annual championship series of Major League Baseball (MLB) in the United States and Canada, contested since 1903 World Series, 1903 between the champion teams of the American League (AL) and the National League (NL). The ...
(see Black Sox Scandal
The Black Sox Scandal was a Major League Baseball game-fixing scandal in which eight members of the Chicago White Sox were accused of throwing the 1919 World Series against the Cincinnati Reds in exchange for money from a gambling syndicate le ...
). In an effort to restore confidence, Major League Baseball
Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball organization and the oldest major professional sports league in the world. MLB is composed of 30 total teams, divided equally between the National League (NL) and the American League (AL) ...
established the office of the Commissioner of Baseball, and one of Kenesaw Mountain Landis's first acts was to ban all involved players for life.
MLB Rule 21 prohibits players from participating in any form of betting on baseball games, and a lifetime ban for betting on a player's own games. A poster with Rule 21 must be posted on all professional baseball clubhouses.
In the 1990s, match fixing in Asia was especially common. In Malaysia, authorities suggested that 70% of football matches were being manipulated, and corruption scandals in China resulted in gamblers choosing to bet on overseas matches.
Japan
is a Japanese word meaning a cheating activity which is committed at places where a match, fight, game, competition, or other contest, is held, where the winner and loser are decided in advance by agreement of the competitors or related people. It is believed that the word ''Yaocho'' came from the name ("Chobei") of the owner of a vegetable stand (''yaoya'') during the Meiji period
The is an era of Japanese history that extended from October 23, 1868 to July 30, 1912.
The Meiji era was the first half of the Empire of Japan, when the Japanese people moved from being an isolated feudal society at risk of colonization ...
. Created from the first syllable of ''Yaoya'' and ''chobei'', the word ''yaocho'' was created for a nickname of Chobei. Chobei had a friend called "Isenoumi Godayu" (7th Isenoumi stablemaster) with whom he played the game Igo Igo or IGO may refer to:
* Intergovernmental organization
* Igo language, a Kwa language of Togo
* Igo, California, a small town in the United States
* iGO (software), a satellite navigation software package
* iGo Inc, an American technology comp ...
, who had once been a sumo
is a form of competitive full-contact wrestling where a '' rikishi'' (wrestler) attempts to force his opponent out of a circular ring ('' dohyō'') or into touching the ground with any body part other than the soles of his feet (usually by ...
wrestler "Kashiwado Sogoro" (former ''shikona
A is a sumo wrestler's ring name. The tradition of ring names in sumo dates back to the Edo period, where they were used as a means to attract customers and hide the identities of the '' rikishi''.
Like standard Japanese names, a ''shikona'' ...
'': "Kyonosato") and now was a "''toshiyori
A is a sumo elder of the Japan Sumo Association (JSA). Also known as , former wrestlers who reached a sufficiently high rank are the only people eligible. The benefits are considerable, as only ''toshiyori'' are allowed to run and coach in su ...
''" (a stablemaster of sumo). Although Chobei was a better Igo player than Isenoumi, he sometimes lost games on purpose to please Isenoumi so that Isenoumi would continue to buy merchandise from his shop. Afterward, once people knew of his cheating, they started to use ''yaocho'' as a word meaning any decision to win/lose a match in advance by negotiation etc. with the expectation of secondary profit, even though the match seems to be held seriously and fairly.
Economists using statistical analysis have shown very strong evidence of bout fixing in sumo
is a form of competitive full-contact wrestling where a '' rikishi'' (wrestler) attempts to force his opponent out of a circular ring ('' dohyō'') or into touching the ground with any body part other than the soles of his feet (usually by ...
wrestling. Most of the motive for match fixing is helping each other's ranking to keep their salary higher, according to Keisuke Itai. For example, wrestlers in ''jūryō
Professional sumo as administered by the Japan Sumo Association is divided into six ranked divisions. Wrestlers are promoted and demoted within and between these divisions based on the merit of their win–loss records in official tournaments. Fo ...
'' (the second tier) desperately try to avoid finishing the tournament with a losing record (7–8 or worse) and exchange or buy the match result, or their salary would be nothing, 0 yen, with the participation wage of 150,000 yen every two months if they finish the tournament with a losing record, and their ranking would go down to '' makushita'' (third level) and only participate in seven matches, the lesser ranking from ''jūryō
Professional sumo as administered by the Japan Sumo Association is divided into six ranked divisions. Wrestlers are promoted and demoted within and between these divisions based on the merit of their win–loss records in official tournaments. Fo ...
'' in which one can earn 1,036,000 yen monthly with some prizes and a full 15-match tournament.
The sumo association appears to make a distinction between ''yaocho'' (the payment of money to secure a result) and ''koi-ni-yatta mukiryoku zumo'' (the deliberate performance of underpowered sumo in which an opponent simply lays a match down without exchange of money). The intricacies of Japanese culture, which include subordination of individual gain to the greater good and knowing how to read a situation without the exchange of words (I know my opponent's score, he needs help, and I should automatically give it to him) mean that the latter is almost readily accepted in the sumo world and is also nearly impossible to prove.
Cricket
Some of the most notorious instances of match fixing have been observed in international cricket
Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by st ...
. In 2000 the Delhi
Delhi, officially the National Capital Territory (NCT) of Delhi, is a city and a union territory of India containing New Delhi, the capital of India. Straddling the Yamuna river, primarily its western or right bank, Delhi shares borders wi ...
police intercepted a conversation between a blacklisted bookie and the South Africa
South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring count ...
n cricket
Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by st ...
captain Hansie Cronje in which they learnt that Cronje accepted money to throw matches. A court of inquiry was set up and Cronje admitted to throwing matches. He was immediately banned from all cricket. He also named Saleem Malik (Pakistan
Pakistan ( ur, ), officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan ( ur, , label=none), is a country in South Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, fifth-most populous country, with a population of almost 24 ...
), Mohammed Azharuddin and Ajay Jadeja (India
India, officially the Republic of India ( Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the ...
) as fellow match fixers. Jadeja was banned for 4 years. Although Cronje was a kingpin of betting, following untimely death in 2002 most of his fixing partners escaped law enforcement agencies. Earlier in 1998, Australian players Mark Waugh and Shane Warne
Shane Keith Warne (13 September 1969 – 4 March 2022) was an Australian international cricketer, whose career ran from 1991 to 2007. Warne played as a right-arm leg spin bowler and a right-handed batsman for Victoria, Hampshire and Austral ...
were fined for revealing information about the 'weather' to a bookmaker.
The fourth Test
Test(s), testing, or TEST may refer to:
* Test (assessment), an educational assessment intended to measure the respondents' knowledge or other abilities
Arts and entertainment
* ''Test'' (2013 film), an American film
* ''Test'' (2014 film), ...
of Pakistan's summer 2010 cricket tour of England contained several incidents of spot fixing, involving members of Pakistan team deliberately bowling no-ball
In cricket, a no-ball is a type of illegal delivery to a batter (the other type being a wide). It is also a type of extra, being the run awarded to the batting team as a consequence of the illegal delivery. For most cricket games, especially ...
s at specific points to facilitate betting through bookmakers. Following investigation, three Pakistani players were banned from cricket and sentenced to prison terms. Similarly, in Indian Premier League
The Indian Premier League (IPL), also known as Tata Group, TATA IPL for sponsorship reasons, is a men's T20 cricket, T20 Professional sports league organization, franchise cricket Sports league, league of India. It is annually contested by ...
in 2013, S. Sreesanth and two other players were banned by the Board of Control for Cricket in India
The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) is the national governing body for cricket in India. Its headquarters are situated at Cricket centre, Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai. The BCCI is the richest governing body of cricket in the world ...
for alleged match fixing. Sreesanth's ban was briefly lifted, but the Kerala High Court
The High Court of Kerala is the highest court in the Indian state of Kerala and the Union territory of Lakshadweep. It is located in Kochi. Drawing its powers under Article 226 of the Constitution of India, the High Court has the power to iss ...
upheld the ban in 2017.
In July 2017, ex-Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka (, ; si, ශ්රී ලංකා, Śrī Laṅkā, translit-std=ISO (); ta, இலங்கை, Ilaṅkai, translit-std=ISO ()), formerly known as Ceylon and officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, is an ...
cricket captain Arjuna Ranatunga alleged that the 2011 Cricket World Cup Final
The 2011 Cricket World Cup Final was a One Day International (ODI) match played between India and Sri Lanka at the Wankhede Stadium, Mumbai, India on Saturday 2 April 2011. The culmination of the tenth edition of the World Cup, it was the firs ...
match between India and Sri Lanka had been fixed. The investigation was dropped by Sri Lankan authorities and the International Cricket Council
The International Cricket Council (ICC) is the world governing body of cricket. Headquartered in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, its members are List of International Cricket Council members, 108 national associations, with 12 List of Internation ...
in 2020 due to a lack of evidence.
In July 2022, it was reported that local authorities had shut down an operation in Gujarat
Gujarat (, ) is a state along the western coast of India. Its coastline of about is the longest in the country, most of which lies on the Kathiawar peninsula. Gujarat is the fifth-largest Indian state by area, covering some ; and the nin ...
, India, that had been running a fictitious, kayfabe
In professional wrestling, kayfabe, as a noun, is the portrayal of staged events within the industry as "real" or "true", specifically the portrayal of competition, rivalries, and relationships between participants as being genuine and not staged. ...
version of the Indian Premier League
The Indian Premier League (IPL), also known as Tata Group, TATA IPL for sponsorship reasons, is a men's T20 cricket, T20 Professional sports league organization, franchise cricket Sports league, league of India. It is annually contested by ...
in an attempt to scam Russian sports betters. The matches took place on a field with floodlights, with players dressed in replica jerseys of real IPL teams; based on bets received on a Telegram
Telegraphy is the long-distance transmission of messages where the sender uses symbolic codes, known to the recipient, rather than a physical exchange of an object bearing the message. Thus flag semaphore is a method of telegraphy, whereas ...
channel, umpires instructed the players and "referees" to perform specific plays and calls. Broadcasts of the "matches" were streamed on YouTube
YouTube is a global online video sharing and social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by Google, and is the second most ...
, and utilized artificial crowd noise , a sound-alike of cricket commentator Harsha Bhogle, and camera angles that never showed clear shots of the pitch, players, or deliveries. The participating players were paid 400 rupees per-game, and the operation was estimated to have scammed punters out of 300,000 rupees before it was shut down by police. The actual 2022 Indian Premier League had already concluded at the end of May.
Football
In 2006 the European football powerhouse Juventus F.C. drew a match against minnows Rimini in a fixed encounter. Following investigation, Juventus Manager Luciano Moggi, Italian Football President Franco Carraro and Vice-president Innocenzo Mazzini had to resign In 2010 several Korean footballers were punished by FIFA with a lifelong ban from all sports for fixing several matches in the Korean League Cup. During the subsequent investigation, many top Korean players were also found to be involved in match fixing after the initial discovery.
Professional wrestling
In professional wrestling
Professional wrestling is a form of theater that revolves around staged wrestling matches. The mock combat is performed in a ring similar to the kind used in boxing, and the dramatic aspects of pro wrestling may be performed both in the ring or ...
, most matches have predetermined results; however, as it is an open secret
An open secret is a concept or idea that is "officially" (''de jure'') secret or restricted in knowledge, but in practice (''de facto'') is widely known; or it refers to something that is widely known to be true but which none of the people most i ...
that professional wrestling is staged, it is not considered match fixing.
Up until the 1920s, professional wrestling was considered a legitimate sport. This did not endure as professional wrestling became identified with modern theatrics or ''admitted fakery'', moving away from actual competition. The "worked", known as "kayfabe
In professional wrestling, kayfabe, as a noun, is the portrayal of staged events within the industry as "real" or "true", specifically the portrayal of competition, rivalries, and relationships between participants as being genuine and not staged. ...
" nature of wrestling led critics to deem it an illegitimate sport, particularly in comparison to boxing
Boxing (also known as "Western boxing" or "pugilism") is a combat sport in which two people, usually wearing protective gloves and other protective equipment such as hand wraps and mouthguards, throw punches at each other for a predetermine ...
, amateur wrestling
Amateur wrestling is a variant of wrestling practiced in collegiate, school, or other amateur level competitions. There are two international wrestling styles performed in the Olympic Games: freestyle and Greco-Roman. Both styles are under the ...
, and, more recently, mixed martial arts
Mixed martial arts (MMA), sometimes referred to as cage fighting, no holds barred (NHB), and ultimate fighting, and originally referred to as Vale Tudo is a full-contact combat sport based on strike (attack), striking, grappling and ground f ...
.
Many individuals began to doubt the legitimacy of wrestling after the retirement of Frank Gotch
Frank Alvin Gotch (April 27, 1877 – December 17, 1917) was an American professional wrestler. Gotch was the first American professional wrestler to win the world heavyweight free-style championship, and he is credited for popularizing profess ...
in 1913. As wrestling's popularity was diving around the same time that Major League Baseball
Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball organization and the oldest major professional sports league in the world. MLB is composed of 30 total teams, divided equally between the National League (NL) and the American League (AL) ...
had its own legitimacy issues, wrestling started to take on a more worked approach while still appearing as a legitimate sport, beginning with the Gold Dust Trio
The Gold Dust Trio was a group of promoters who controlled the world of professional wrestling during the 1920s while also making several fundamental changes to the industry's business model and operations that would ultimately change the directio ...
of the 1920s.[ Even after the formation of the ]National Wrestling Alliance
The National Wrestling Alliance (NWA) is an American professional wrestling promotion and former professional wrestling governing body operated by its parent company Lightning One, Inc.
Founded in 1948, the NWA began as a governing body for a ...
in 1948, wrestling continued to have legitimacy issues.
Nevertheless, wrestling was still regulated by state athletic commissions in the United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., federal district, five ma ...
well into the 1980s, until Vince McMahon
Vincent Kennedy McMahon (; born August 24, 1945) is an American media proprietor and retired professional wrestling promoter, executive, and performer. From 1982 to 2022, he served as the chairman and chief executive officer (CEO) of WWE, the ...
, owner of the World Wrestling Federation, convinced the state of New Jersey
New Jersey is a U.S. state, state in the Mid-Atlantic States, Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern United States, Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York (state), New York; on the ea ...
in 1989 that wrestling was considered a form of entertainment (or "sports entertainment
Sports entertainment is a type of spectacle which presents an ostensibly competitive event using a high level of theatrical flourish and extravagant presentation, with the purpose of entertaining an audience. Unlike typical sports and games, wh ...
", as McMahon used) rather than as a legitimate sport, and that it should not be regulated by state athletic commissions. The move was seen as more of a relief to those who had questioned wrestling's legitimacy, since at least one major company (in this case, the WWF) was now publicly willing to admit that wrestling was staged; however, the move did anger many wrestling purists.
Due to the lingering legitimacy issues that surrounded wrestling from the 1910s until the 1980s, gambling was generally not allowed on wrestling matches while it was still considered a legitimate sport. Despite wrestling having openly acknowledged that the results are predetermined for years, since the late 2000s gambling has increased on wrestling events, though the maximum bets are kept low due to the matches being predetermined. By contrast, when the WWF co-founded an American football
American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team wit ...
league with NBC known as the XFL (which played for a single season in 2001), the league had to emphasize that its games were not staged in this manner (despite drawing upon wrestling, and in particular the WWF's " Attitude Era", in its overall image and presentation), and specifically promoted the willingness of Las Vegas bookmaker
A bookmaker, bookie, or turf accountant is an organization or a person that accepts and pays off bets on sporting and other events at agreed-upon odds.
History
The first bookmaker, Ogden, stood at Newmarket in 1795.
Range of events
Book ...
s to take wagers on the games as evidence of its legitimacy.
Quiz shows
In the 1950s, the producers of several televised quiz show
A game show is a genre of broadcast viewing entertainment (radio, television, internet, stage or other) where contestants compete for a reward. These programs can either be participatory or demonstrative and are typically directed by a host, ...
s in the United States were found to have engaged in match fixing, as part of an effort to boost viewer interest and ratings. Geritol
Geritol is a United States trademarked name for various dietary supplements, past and present. Geritol is a brand name for several vitamin complexes plus iron or multimineral products in both liquid form and tablets, containing from 9.5 to 18&nb ...
, the sponsor of the new quiz show ''Twenty-One
21 (twenty-one) is the natural number following 20 and preceding 22.
The current century is the 21st century AD, under the Gregorian calendar.
In mathematics
21 is:
* a composite number, its proper divisors being 1, 3 and 7, and a deficie ...
'', showed concerns over the poor performance of its early contestants—which they felt were causing the show to trail behind its main competitor, '' The $64,000 Question''. At the time, the majority of television programs were effectively controlled by their single sponsors, with broadcasters only providing studios and airtime. Geritol demanded that Barry & Enright Productions make changes to the show, which included the outright choreography of contestants around pre-determined outcomes.
The most infamous example of this strategy came when champion Herbert Stempel
Herbert Milton Stempel (December 19, 1926 – April 7, 2020) was an American television game show contestant and subsequent whistleblower on the fraudulent nature of the industry, in what became known as the 1950s quiz show scandals. His rigged ...
was to be replaced by Charles Van Doren—a Columbia University
Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manha ...
English teacher whom the producers felt would be more popular with viewers. On ''Twenty-One'', winners of matches received $500 for every point within their margin of victory, but this pot increased by $500 after every tie game. To build anticipation for the episode where Van Doren would defeat Stempel, the first episode of their match was played to three tie games; this meant that the next game would be played for $2,000 per-point. After one more tie game, Stempel threw the match to Van Doren by answering specific questions incorrectly. Among them, he incorrectly guessed that '' On the Waterfront'' was the winner of the Best Picture award at the 28th Academy Awards. The correct answer was '' Marty'', which was also one of Stempel's favorite films.
The cancellation of the competing quiz '' Dotto'' under similar allegations prompted a U.S. government investigation into both it and ''Twenty-One''. The investigation similarly revealed that Revlon
Revlon, Inc. is an American multinational company dealing in cosmetics, skin care, fragrance, and personal care. The headquarters of Revlon was established in New York City on March 1, 1932, where it still remains. Revlon was founded by brot ...
—the sponsor of ''The $64,000 Question''—had instructed the show's producers to balance its questions more favorably towards contestants they felt would be more popular among viewers (although it stopped short of outright rigging games to the same extent as ''Twenty-One''). The scandal resulted in regulations being implemented to prohibit the rigging of game shows and other contests by broadcasters.
Esports
Match fixing controversies have also emerged in Esports, including in particular '' Counter-Strike: Global Offensive'', ''Dota 2
''Dota 2'' is a 2013 multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) video game by Valve. The game is a sequel to '' Defense of the Ancients'' (''DotA''), a community-created mod for Blizzard Entertainment's '' Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos.'' ''Dota ...
'', ''League of Legends
''League of Legends'' (''LoL''), commonly referred to as ''League'', is a 2009 multiplayer online battle arena video game developed and published by Riot Games. Inspired by ''Defense of the Ancients'', a custom map for ''Warcraft III'', Ri ...
'', '' Overwatch'', '' Paladins'', ''StarCraft
''StarCraft'' is a military science fiction media franchise created by Chris Metzen and James Phinney and owned by Blizzard Entertainment. The series, set in the beginning of the 26th century, centers on a galactic struggle for dominance am ...
''. Major scandals have included those of the iBuyPower and NetcodeGuides.com ''Counter-Strike'' teams, where it was found that the iBuyPower team had received around $10,000 worth of items via skin gambling—the practice of wagering ''CS:GO'' weapon skins in a similar manner to sports betting, based on real-world market values—after they threw matches in a major tournament. South Korean '' StarCraft II'' player Life
Life is a quality that distinguishes matter that has biological processes, such as Cell signaling, signaling and self-sustaining processes, from that which does not, and is defined by the capacity for Cell growth, growth, reaction to Stimu ...
was also convicted of having partaken in match fixing.
Protection against manipulation
By monitoring the pre-match betting markets it is sometimes possible to detect planned match fixing. It is also possible to detect on-going match manipulation by looking at the in-game betting markets. Several federations have employed services that provide such systems for detecting match manipulation. Prior to the 2016 MLB season, Major League Baseball (MLB) hired Genius Sports, a sports technology company specialising in integrity, to monitor the betting patterns on all of their games.
In addition, several federations run integrity tours where players and officials participate in educational workshops on how match fixing work and how they are prevented.
See also
* Bookmaker
A bookmaker, bookie, or turf accountant is an organization or a person that accepts and pays off bets on sporting and other events at agreed-upon odds.
History
The first bookmaker, Ogden, stood at Newmarket in 1795.
Range of events
Book ...
* Convention on the Manipulation of Sports Competitions
* List of match fixing incidents
* Match fixing in association football
* Match fixing in cricket
** List of cricketers banned for match fixing
In cricket, match fixing occurs as a match is played to a completely or partially pre-determined result, violating the rules of the game and often the law. In particular, players have been approached by bookmakers and bribed to throw matches or a ...
* Organized crime
Organized crime (or organised crime) is a category of transnational, national, or local groupings of highly centralized enterprises run by criminals to engage in illegal activity, most commonly for profit. While organized crime is generally tho ...
* Over–under (both teams combined score betting)
* Point shaving (attempts to manipulate a match score based on the point spread)
* Sports betting
* Spot-fixing (attempts to manipulate certain portions of a match)
* Team orders
Notes
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Match Fixing
Organized crime activity
Sports law