Are Sports Rigged
It’s well known that one of the largest sports networks, ESPN, doesn’t engage in investigative journalism because the network would potentially lose millions in revenue if spectators sensed that the Super Bowl and World Series were rigged. Click here for more sports coverage on foxnews.com 'The game was ‘rigged’ and ‘fixed,’' he wrote. 'I'm going to ask the courts to change the final score.
The New England Patriots’ miraculous comeback to beat the Atlanta Falcons in Super Bowl LI last week was so incredible it was as if a higher power was pulling the strings.
Conspiracy theorists had a field day in the immediate aftermath of what will go down as one of, if not the greatest Super Bowl of all-time. Those in the tin foil hats pointed out that the Falcons hardly attempted to burn the clock late in the game, and that FOX – which broadcast the game – posted a graphic before New England won that read, “New England Patriots – wins Super Bowl with touchdown.” (Likely just poor grammar from a production assistant).
The Super Bowl truthers also claim that James White’s knee was down before he scored the game-winning TD, and the truly nutty believe President Donald Trump and even Russian President Vladimir Putin had their fingerprints on the game. After all, Trump is buddy-buddy with Patriots owner Robert Kraft and both Trump and Kraft have a history with Putin (Putin once stole one of Kraft’s Super Bowl rings, so last week’s win was reimbursement).
As fun as those theories are, football is likely the most difficult game in all of American pro sports to rig.
Metro recently spoke with Joe Gagliano, author of the new book No Grey Areas, about how difficult it would be to rig a pro football game and how easy (or hard) it would be to fix other major sports in the U.S.. Gagliano financed, orchestrated, and was later indicted for his role in one of the most prominent point-shaving scandals in U.S. history in the Arizona State basketball case of the 1990s.
Football
As much as Patriots haters would like it to be the case, Gagliano believes the Super Bowl was on the up and up.
“In football, you’ve got 11 guys on the field,” Gagliano told Metro. “Even if you had a quarterback in your pocket it’d be next to impossible, and you’re just not going to get an NFL quarterback because they’re just so highly compensated. There’s just no way to motivate a quarterback to fix a game because they’re already making so much money.
“You’re not going to get a college quarterback either, because if he throws two or three interceptions in the first quarter of a game – the coach is going to yank him.”
Even kickers, who are paid significantly less than QBs but have a direct influence on game point totals, would have a tough time “rigging” a contest, according to Gagliano.
“The kicker needs to be in a situation where he’s going to directly impact the line,” Gagliano said. “It’s really difficult to get to that point. He has no control over how well his offense or defense is playing. If I was a kicker and I was on the take, I know I could not control my own destiny.”
Basketball
Gagliano’s cash cow was basketball, but he says it has become increasingly difficult over the years to rig what occurs on the court.
“In the NBA it’s next to impossible today as well,” he said. “A couple referees have tried to do it and even they were hovering around the 70 percent mark in terms of success. It’s so tough to do it. Even a lower paid bench player – that player is going to get yanked if he’s having a bad night.
“When I was doing this thing in 93-94, I had a guy who was leading the NCAA in minutes played. He completely dictated everything that happened on the floor for that team. He had the ball 80 percent of the time when the team was on offense. And I had the other guard on the team too [working for me]. So nothing happened on that team without one of those two guys dictating it.
Nowadays you can’t do that because if you have a superstar freshman on a team, normally these kids are one year and done. They’re playing for NBA scouts. And there’s so much money in front of them that … there’s no reason for them to go to the dark side.”
Hockey
Team sports are obviously much more difficult to fix than individual sports (boxing, track and field, tennis) because of the number of parties that need to be involved, but Gagliano does believe that the NHL is susceptible to scandal.
“I think if you get a goalie in the twilight of his career it could be possible,” he said. “These guys don’t make a lot of money relative to the other sports. Even if you make $1 million a year, your career is typically only lasting five or six years in the NHL, and you’re paying taxes, and you’re building up a lifestyle – that money seems to go pretty quickly.
“So, you get a higher profile game on a Saturday or Sunday, and you have the goalie put three to four goals through his wickets in the first period, and you bet the over. You bet over four and a half goals, five goals – and you can probably cash your ticket at that point.
UFC
The most popular sport in the U.S. with the most red flags, according to Gagliano, is Mixed Martial Arts.
“It has the potential to be as corrupt as possible,” he said. “You look at that sport as a whole, you look at these kids – not making a lot of money. You look at the lifespan of an athlete in that sport, then you put a betting line on it? These kids are getting their brains pounded in, and there’s not a big payday there at all.
“You look at a guy like Anderson Silva – pound for pound the best fighter in the UFC for years. But he was constantly arguing and was in bitter battles with Dana White and the UFC where he thought he deserved more money and the UFC didn’t want to pay him more money.
“You look at him – a couple fights ago against Chris Weidman. [Silva] got $2.5 million. That’s a great payday for you or I, but when you’re paying training fees, taxes and traveling fees and then you realize you haven’t got much more time in your career – and you also see all the revenue that the UFC is taking in, you get bitter pretty fast.
“If you’re a kid like Anderson Silva, who grows up in Brazil and has a bunch of friends – you send your buddies to England or to Australia with a duffle bag with a half million bucks. You’re a 10-1 favorite. You get caught with a punch, or you get caught in a choke hold. Your half million bucks turns into $5 million cash off-shore. You’re not even paying taxes on that No. 1, and No. 2, the rematch in the UFC is probably worth more money than the first fight that you had. It’s just too tempting to go to the dark side in that sport.”
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petroglyph.....Sitting there watching a fight at ringside with a limited perspective, no announcers and knowing when a punch landed or not is very, very hard....
That reminded me of the time....An old friend got into words with a guy in a bar, and they decided to 'take it out back' of the bar.
They started slugging each other, and it was pretty obvious the other guy had had some training. He was landing punch after punch and started throwing combinations at my friend.
The friend says to the guy, hey wait a second, so the guy stops swinging.
My buddy says to him, I'm not sure what's going on here, but if you want to keep fighting with me, you are going to have to slow down a little bit.
The other guy started laughing so hard, he said he was done. : )
Even the examples you gave are speculative
For a few of the examples I was very clear that their were rumors and that I believed them. For other examples, they are simply how the sports leagues operate. Do you really disagree that draft position is rigged to give a benefit to the weaker teams at the expense of the stronger teams?
Conspiracy minded people tend to not really grasp how different the first person perspective is from the outside, TV/Video game perspective.
You missed the entire point that a game can be rigged (and would be easier to rig) without any conspiracy at all. Mayweather was playing games with McGregor, but not doing much damage. It is rare for a fight to stop under those conditions. Usually it is the opposite problem, where the ref lets the fight go on longer than it should. Because it can be so hard to score a round in boxing, giving a 10-8 round to someone without a knockdown makes it look even more suspicious. The ref and the judge could very easily have been favoring Mayweather independently, without any conspiracy at all. Their bias may have changed the probability of a Mayweather win from 98% to 99%. May not seem like much, but it cuts McGregor's chances of winning in half.
A ref is watching 20 things happen at once, with incredible speed, while standing there on the floor. The idea that he is perfectly calculating what call to make with regard to the point spread is a little silly.
Are Major Sports Rigged
The Lakers-Kings was an All-Time great screwup by the refs, with motivation to do so, corroborated by other sources that the refs were favoring one team. As I said before, there are rumors and I believe it happened. As hard as it can be to make the right call, every close call went to the Lakers, in addition to calls that weren't close at all. There is a very low probability of that happening just based on degree of difficulty without some outside influence. And even if it was all just one big colossal screwup without anything deeper, the refusal of the league to use replay technology helped to rig the game to whichever team was the beneficiary of those screwups.
Makes me think of the widely held believe that in basketball the refs will often give 'make-up' call after they screwup. Just watching casually, it seems like this is true. And it is definitely a form of the refs rigging the game.
Referencing the point spread is silly and meaningless, as that is almost never the basis for why a game would be rigged. (Though there are some examples of when it has been)
Imagine someone claiming your every move was part of some grand scheme to screw them over, and that this was all you thought about 24/7 with perfect focus and flawless execution. Not only that, it was part of a perfectly coordinated effort with everybody else in your life, who was doing the same thing.
Imagine a non-coordinated effort by one person, making one action in their own best interest, without regard for anything else. A cashier dipping into the cash register. Someone taking a sick day so they can go to the beach. Stretching the truth on a resume. A fight judge scoring it for the guy who will help them keep their job. If you believe those first three could happen, the last one seems pretty reasonable.RS
How often do you think sporting events are rigged? Are you suggesting maybe several NBA games are rigged every week? Are most (big) boxing fights rigged? How rigged do you consider to be rigged? Obviously there's going to be a level of bias, whether you naturally favor Floyd, the Warriors, or if you're more inclined to let a fight go on longer / stop it quicker than what other refs may. But do you think there's a conscious effort to favor one side versus the other, as in the ref is purposely calling extra fouls on purpose (which is different than a subconscious bias)?
But no I don't see how the NFL draft is rigged. It is designed to help the worst teams. I don't know. Are tournaments that reward the best teams with byes or good seeds rigged? That just doesn't make sense with my understanding of the word.
Rewatching the end of the fight. The stoppage was on the early side but well within the parameters of fairness and normalcy A gassed fighter was out of the fight. His hands were down. Opponent was teeing off almost at will. Given 10 more seconds, there is little doubt Connor would be properly KOed, and perhaps badly hurt. Could have waited for 1 more hay maker but again, a snap judgement from a first person perspective in the heat of the moment. I'd be shocked if the possibility of Connor winning was anywhere in his mind.
The ref might consider the lopsidedness of the overall fight. In this case, the fact that the dude was an amateur. And lean to preventing the last 1 or 2 punches that could be devastating.
Though he put in a relatively great performance, Connor did not have a 1% chance before the fight started, let alone at that point.
Only people who had Conor think the fight ended prematurely.
one of the best deals you will ever get in horse racing is betting against the not so wise wiseguys who think the fix is in
some trainers are winning around 30% - an outlandish % - everybody who knows knows he's juicing the horses with illegal drugs - and he most probably is
so this trainer claims a nobody horse who in the last 3 races has finished, 9, 10 and 12 lengths behind the winner in his last 3 races
and these not so wise wiseguys bet this horse way down believing the trainer is going to juice the horse and he's going to win
but this trainer is not a miracle worker
this horse is not going to win (or very, very seldom)
nice edge betting against 'the fix'.
I once saw them bet way down a horse with a juicing trainer who had finished 30, then 28 lengths behind the winner in his 2 races before last. and in his last race he did not finish- he was pulled up
an example of stupid people who think they're really smart
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I have rarely messed with the horses, the few times I have there was a clear advantage. At a time back in the 90's when I first started APing there was lots easy very low-risk consistent AP money to be made. I got to know quite a few guys that were doing the same type of plays that I was, some even started before I had. After a short while, I could tell the ones that bet on the horses. They were all very unkept, half crazy, and broke (or close to it) by the end of each day. Half of them loved to tell me how good they were at the horses.
I dont think 95%of the guys or gals on this site fits the above description of horse bettors. So don't be offended by my story. I'm not Horseist, I just stereotype guys I see betting horses in the 'horsebook'
Are College Sports Rigged
I've possibly created a new word here.
Consider various Overs in Cricket Test Matches.
Playing to a lesser advantage will hardly be detected, won't cost any points and wont affect the game.
So it is relatively easy to get a player to accept a hundred grand to do it.
With all these forms on in-game betting the cheating market is worth millions.
With millions at stake, what do you think happens.
Look at those very experienced homicide cops at The Met who needed counseling when a member of a cheating ring let his cell phone go dead and couldn't call in the results in a game that was 'live' . Two minutes of delay and it took him atleast two days to die. Heck, it took his cat at least two days also.
But assuming it's all fair and square, I've always been intrigued of live-betting because just off the top of my head, I feel like that could be a major AP play, but never really dug deep into it. The in-game odds being put out by these sportsbooks throughout the game will always be less accurate than having days to put out a line before a game starts, and that's obviously due to time being the issue. This is especially true for the smaller local books who don't get to compare their lines to the major sportsbooks because once again, time is an issue. Not to mention, even if they still put out accurate lines, if you've done your homework before the game and you're able to see what kind of motivation and intangible things are happening from one team and not the other, it might reinforce your bet to double down or maybe cut your losses and bet on the 'hungrier' team etc. This is a huge variance reducer and should be +EV if you do it right. The point made by Tom regarding the Hawaii - UNLV game is a good example of that. If you felt Hawaii was a great pick before the game, but then you see how they came out flat for whatever reason, you might now be inclined to change your bet. I feel like live betting allows further flexibility to the studious observer. Of course you still have to do your homework to make a rational educated bet, but it should lower the risk a lot especially when you made a +EV bet to begin with.
Also to the people mentioning the drafts in professional sports. Has anyone seen the NBA draft and how it's done? lol. They literally do it in the 'back' and not one person in the general public gets to see what is happening with those ping pong balls as they decide who gets the number 1 pick LOL. I mean seriously? Why can't they just show some integrity and do it in the front of everyone? Red flags should be going off in everyone's head after that suspicious procedure. By the way, Tom and RIGondeaux(seriously just realized you have the word 'rig' in your name lol). Anyway, you guys seem to be talking about rigging the draft in a different way, saying they favor favorable teams. Do you mean that teams with losing records shouldn't be awarded a better chance to land a top pick? That's not really 'rigging' per se. That's just a horrible policy in place because it destroys competition. The NBA and the NFL should introduce the same league policy as they do in international soccer. If you don't get in the top 95% of the standings you get RELEGATED to another division. This will end 'tanking' as we know it and not have teams purposely games and thereby enhancing competition throughout the whole season regardless if a team is already eliminated for the playoffs. The NBA and the NFL need to implement at the least another division, maybe two for all the relegated teams. Of course this will entail needing more professional teams to create a multi division sport, but it has to be done. I think it would be a +EV business decision and a strong negotiating point at the table with prospective owners.
I have half a brain and I noticed. I also watch the 'Serbian Lottery Scandal' on youtube and was SHOCKED. Why, they draw their numbers the exact same way we here in the states draw our Mega Millions and Power Ball numbers! But, no WAY would OUR boys fleece us. Anyway, sports, or anything where there is that much money involved, of course somewhere there's going to be a Tony Soprano with his hand out, waiting for his cut. It's the way it is and the way it's always been.
Wait until you see how the NBA draft is done. LOL
