Why on earth would anyone bet on the outcome of an obscure tennis match? And we're not talking about a £5 flutter, the amounts must be stupendously large, to justify offering Djoko $200k to throw a match.
Illogical. And spectacularly stupid.
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"Where Ratty leads - the rest soon follow" (Professor Henry Brubaker - The Institute of Studies)
Indeed it would be great if the tennis authorities were "always battling to get rid of this corruption at every level".
But for now I don't get that impression, more as has been said a PR exercise, trying to limit damage on that front. And I found Long time reader's tale of the ( stretched as they are ) TIU's concern re courtsiders quite extraordinary. As said, that's really the bookies' problem ( and if they had nothing much else to do, maybe fair enough to help ), their concern should be their players!
Personally I really don't see what they have to lose in really beefing up things and actually really try much harder to get big hits raher than more give the impression of going through the motions while just wishing the issue would disappear from the public domain and we would just talk about the sport. But that sport loses credibility the more folk wonder about what they are seeing and question what is being done to police it.
I see 'defendants', some players included, pointing out that some players are indeed banned. Given that indeed some are on the back of such relatively feeble resources just makes me wonder more the extent of the problem, and how much more there is out there and how much more should ge getting done.
Who knows the extent. Just the huge disparity in earnings makes me highly doubt involvement of players at or near the very top so I believe what I see there in the vital matter of trying to win ( drugs is what may more infiltrate those levels, a whole different matter, occasionally discussed, and also underresourced ).
Players at other levels could be more readily tempted, be they Russians, Italians, South Americans, British, whoever ...
-- Edited by indiana on Wednesday 20th of January 2016 07:40:44 PM
Why on earth would anyone bet on the outcome of an obscure tennis match? And we're not talking about a £5 flutter, the amounts must be stupendously large, to justify offering Djoko $200k to throw a match.
Illogical. And spectacularly stupid.
Logical though if you know the outcome in advance.
For now, much dependence seems to be on the bookies catching on to illogical amunts, volumes and betting patterns and highlighting these to authorities.
La liste des 15 joueurs de BuzzFeed News
Igor Andreev (RUS), 15 matches suspects
Alex Bogomolov Jr (RUS), 18
Juan Ignacio Chela (ARG), 15
Ivan Dodig (CRO), 12
Matthew Ebden (AUS), 14
Teymuraz Gabashvili (RUS), 11
Daniel Gimeno-Traver (ESP), 11
Andrey Golubev (KAZ), 14
Jan Hajek (RTC), 13
Lleyton Hewitt (AUS), 13
Denis Istomin (OUZ), 11
Lukas Lacko (SVQ), 15
Albert Montanes (ESP), 15
Michael Russell (USA), 13
Janko Tipsarevic (SER), 13
The recent admission of the anomomous South American player that he can make a decent living by losing matches make financial sense but leaves a sickening taste in ones mouth.
He explains how he was offered USD 1500 to lose a match against someone ranked much lower than him but refused and won. He lost in the second round and picked up USD 200.
The next week, he accepted USD 2000 to lose first round and picked up prize money of USD 117 plus USD 2000. For the first time in his career he could sleep in a decent hotel and even bring gifts back for his parents from his travels.
He also recalls that one day he was playing against a guy who he had never won more than 3 games from in a set and beat him 6-2 6-1. He realised during the match that the game had been fixed.
Why on earth would anyone bet on the outcome of an obscure tennis match? And we're not talking about a £5 flutter, the amounts must be stupendously large, to justify offering Djoko $200k to throw a match.
Illogical. And spectacularly stupid.
Logical though if you know the outcome in advance.
For now, much dependence seems to be on the bookies catching on to illogical amunts, volumes and betting patterns and highlighting these to authorities.
Yes I agree that it makes sense from the point of view of the person in the know, but betting always requires a counter-party. If I was approached by someone who said: "I'll bet you£100,000 that ATP ranked 500 will beat ATP ranked 150 in a Challenger", I really would have to be pretty dense to accept the bet.
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"Where Ratty leads - the rest soon follow" (Professor Henry Brubaker - The Institute of Studies)
Good article about the prevalence, and reasons for match-fixing,
Yes yes yes, it's obvious why a tennis player might want to pick up $100 by losing a game or a set.
But this is the mystery which I struggle with:
When offered the proposition "I'll bet you $1,000 that Mike Volley (ranked 900) will drop his serve again Alfonso Baselina (ranked 950) in the first game of round 1 of the Backofbeyondograd $15k" ...
... what sort of clinically insane brain-dead imbecile would reply: "Ooh yes please, and while we're at it, why don't we make it $2,000?"
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"Where Ratty leads - the rest soon follow" (Professor Henry Brubaker - The Institute of Studies)
Masochistic gambling junkies looking for the next adrenaline fix in a sport where the scoring system produces wild fluctuations in probable outcome from point to point?