Match fixing

In organized sports, 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. The most common reason is to obtain a payoff from gamblers, but players may also intentionally perform poorly to gain a future advantage, such as a better draft pick or an easier opponent in a play-off. A player might also play poorly to rig a handicap system.

Match fixing, when motivated by gambling, requires contacts (and normally money transfers) between gamblers, players, team officials, and/or referees. These contacts and transfers can sometimes be found, 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 hard to prove. Often, substitutions made by the coach 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 generally refers to fixing the final result of the game. Another form of match fixing, known as spot fixing, involves fixing small events within a match which can be gambled upon, but which are unlikely to prove decisive in determining the final result of the game.

Other names for match fixing include game fixing, race fixing, sports fixing, or hippodroming. Where the sporting competition in question is a race then the incident is referred to as race fixing. Games that are deliberately lost are sometimes called thrown games. 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 the game instead of having thrown it. In pool hustling, tanking is known as dumping. In sports where a handicap system exists and is capable of being abused, tanking is known as sandbagging.

Motivations and causes

The major motivations behind match fixing are gambling and future team advantage.

Agreements with gamblers

There may be financial gain through agreements with gamblers. The most infamous example of this in North America was the Black Sox Scandal of 1919, in which several members of the Chicago White Sox conspired with gamblers to fix the World Series.

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.^[1]

According to Sportradar, a company that monitors the integrity of sports events on behalf of sports federations, as many as 1% of the matches they monitor are likely to be fixed.^[2]

Protection against manipulation

By monitoring the pre-match betting markets it is 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.^[2] 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.^[3]

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.^[4]

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. Although aligned with tanking, this action is generally viewed as acceptable in American sports.

In the National Basketball Association, there have also been allegations of teams tanking games to finish in sixth rather than fifth place in the conference standings, thus enabling the team in question to evade a possible playoff match with the conference's top seed until the final round of playoffs in that conference (for more details see single-elimination tournament). Additionally, the NBA is the only one of the four major professional sports leagues of the United States in which home advantage in the playoffs is based strictly on regular-season record without regard to seeding. This led to (unproven) allegations of late-season tanking by the 2005–06 Los Angeles Clippers in order to finish sixth instead of fifth in their conference; because of the league's playoff hosting rules, the Clippers would have home advantage in the 3–6 matchup but not the 4–5 matchup. Following that season, the NBA changed its playoff format so that the best second-place team in each conference would be able to obtain up to the #2 seed should it have the second-best conference record.^[5] The NBA has since changed its playoff format again, now awarding playoff berths to the top eight teams in each conference without regard to divisional alignment.

On occasion, a National Football League team has also been accused of throwing its final regular-season game in an attempt to "choose" its possible opponent in the subsequent playoffs.

Perhaps the most notable example of this was when the San Francisco 49ers, who had clinched a playoff berth, lost their regular-season finale in 1988 to the Los Angeles Rams, thereby knocking the New York Giants (who had defeated the 49ers in the playoffs in both 1985 and 1986, also injuring 49er quarterback Joe Montana in the latter year's game) out of the postseason on tiebreakers; after the game, Giants quarterback Phil Simms angrily accused the 49ers of "laying down like dogs."^[6]

In the Canadian Football League, since the introduction of the cross-over rule Western 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 up to and included the 2014 season, it has not paid significant dividends for them since Western cross-over teams have only won one Eastern playoff game and have never advanced to the Grey Cup 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 in the last pool match for both teams. Sweden coach Bengt-Åke Gustafsson publicly contemplated tanking against Slovakia, knowing that if his team won, their quarterfinal opponent would either be Canada, the 2002 gold medalists, or the Czech Republic, 1998 gold medalists. Gustafsson would tell Swedish television "One is cholera, the other the plague." Sweden lost the match 3–0; the most obvious sign of tanking was when Sweden had a five-on-three powerplay with five NHL stars—Peter Forsberg, Mats Sundin, Daniel Alfredsson, Nicklas Lidström, and Fredrik Modin—on the ice, and failed to put a shot on goal. (Sports Illustrated 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 in a quarterfinal in the opposite bracket, while Sweden went on to win the gold medal, defeating the Czechs in the semifinals.^[7]

The 1998 Tiger Cup – an international football tournament contested by countries in Southeast Asia – saw an example of two teams trying to lose a match. The tournament was hosted by Vietnam and the eight countries competing were 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 won the group with Vietnam finishing second. This meant that the winners of the second group would have to travel to Hanoi to play the host nation in the national stadium on their national day whilst the runners-up would face Singapore in Ho Chi Minh City where the final group match was taking place. As the two teams involved - Thailand and Indonesia - had both already qualified for the semi-finals it was in their interest to lose the match and finish in second place. As the game progressed neither side seemed particularly concerned with scoring whilst the defending was lackadaisical. As the match entered stoppage time the Indonesian defender Mursyid Effendi scored an own goal (overcoming the efforts of the opposition players to stop him). Both teams were fined $40,000 and Effendi was banned from international football for life.

The 2012 Summer Olympics saw at least two examples of actual or potential tanking of this type:

• In the most famous example, members of the Chinese, Indonesian and South Korean badminton teams were disqualified for intentionally losing matches to allow better pairings in the knockout stages of the competition.^[8][9] In what the BBC called a “night of shame,” players made simple errors throughout the match, despite boos from the crowd and warnings from the match referee to cease and desist. The Badminton World Federation had charged the four pairs with “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.”^[10]
• In the women's football tournament, Japan intentionally played to a draw with South Africa in Cardiff so that it could finish second in its group and not have to travel to Glasgow, more than 300 miles away, for the first round of the knockout stage. Instead, Japan remained in Cardiff and defeated Brazil in the ensuing quarterfinal match en route to the gold medal match.^[11]

In February 2015, two girls' basketball teams representing Nashville-area Riverdale and Smyrna High Schools were found to be tanking a consolation match of their district tournament.^[12] The winner of the game would enter the same side of the regional tournament bracket as defending state champion^[12] 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.^[13] The loser would avoid Blackman until the regional final, a game whose participants would both advance to the sectional tournament (one step short of the state tournament).^[13] During this game:

• Both coaches pulled their starters early.^[13]
• Riverdale intentionally missed more than a dozen free throws.^[12]
• Smyrna deliberately committed several failure to cross the midcourt line and over-and-back violations.^[12]
• Players from both teams deliberately tried to be called for 3-second violations. At one point, a player gave the official a 3-second signal in an attempt to get called.^[12][13]
• The final straw for the officials was when a Smyrna player attempted an own goal that did not count because the team had already been called for failure to cross the midcourt line in time. The officials then called both coaches aside, accusing them of making a mockery of the game.^[12]

The Tennessee Secondary School Athletic Association, which governs high school sports in the state, took a very dim view of this escapade, banning both teams from further postseason play, fining the two schools a total of $1,500, and placing both teams on probation through the 2015–16 school year.^[12]

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, 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 1983–84 season, 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.^[14][15]

Even though the current lottery gives the team with the worst record only a 25% chance at the top pick (with that team guaranteed no worse than the fourth pick), there can still be some incentive for a team to tank. In an interview for ESPN The Magazine just before the start of the 2013–14 season, an NBA general manager who chose to remain anonymous (though speculated to be either Rob Hennigan of the Orlando Magic or Ryan McDonough of the Phoenix Suns^[16]) stated that his team would try to tank that season to have the best chance at a top pick in the 2014 NBA draft, which was anticipated to be one of the deepest in recent league history. The GM explained how he got the team's owners and the coach to agree to it while trying to keep it a secret from the players.^[17]

The Australian Football League, the main competition of Australian rules football, has used a system of priority draft picks since 1993, 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 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 leagues 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 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, 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).^[18] Beginning in 2015–16, the top three picks in the draft will be subject to lottery, with all fourteen teams that did not qualify for the playoffs eligible to win the picks.

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.

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 referees. Since 2004, separate scandals have erupted in prominent sports leagues in Portugal,^[19] 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 lawman Wyatt Earp refereed the Fitzsimmons vs. Sharkey boxing match, promoted as the Heavyweight Championship of the World.^[20] 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.^[20] Fitzsimmons went to court to attempt to stop Shakey from taking the purse, but failed when the court ruled that the match was illegal and it had no jurisdiction.^[21]

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."^[22]

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 when Stoke City and Burnley 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 expanded the divisions to 18 teams that year, thus permitting the intended victims of the fix (Newcastle United and Blackburn Rovers) to remain in the First Division. The "test match" system was abandoned and replaced with automatic relegation.

A more recent example occurred in the 1982 FIFA World Cup, West Germany played Austria 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, 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.^[23] 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 entered their match with Brescia 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.^[23]

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 (a) replay(s). 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.

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. Because unlike FIFA, UEFA 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 when ranking teams level on points, a situation arose in Group C where Sweden and Denmark played to a 2–2 draw, which was a sufficiently high scoreline to eliminate Italy (which had lower-scoring draws with the Swedes and Danes) regardless of Italy's result with already-eliminated Bulgaria. 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 Scandinavian rivals from, in their view, at the very least half-heartedly playing out the match after the score became 2–2. The exact 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.^[24] But Spain-Croatia ended up 1–0, 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) where players on a favored team have won the game but deliberately ensured the quoted point spread 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. Argentina needed a four-goal victory to advance over Brazil, an enormous margin at this level of competition, especially since Argentina had a weak offense (6 goals in 5 games) and Peru a stout defence (6 goals allowed in 5 games). Yet somehow, Argentina won 6–0. Much was made over political collusion,^[25] that the Peruvian goalkeeper was born in Argentina, and that Peru was dependent on Argentinian grain shipments, but nothing was ever proven.^[26]

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, needing to win by eleven goals to qualify for the Euro 1984 ahead of the Netherlands, defeated Malta by a score of 12–1 on the strength of nine second half goals. Especially in international football, 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's more notorious matches. In a 1979 match in England's now-defunct Benson & Hedges Cup, a one-day league, Worcestershire hosted Somerset 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 determined 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. Worcester 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 (predecessor to the current England and Wales Cricket Board) voted to expel Somerset from the 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.^[27]

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, 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 where such a fix would require the co-operation (and prerequsitely, 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, disgraced former National Basketball Association 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 biased. 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 currently unlikely that enough is bet on an average player to allow someone to place a substantial wager on them without being noticed.

One such attempt was described by retired footballer Matthew Le Tissier, 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 match against Wimbledon FC so that a group of associates would collect on a wager made on an early throw-in.^[28]

Similarly, in 2010 Pakistani cricket players were accused of committing specific no ball penalties for the benefit of gamblers.^[29] This 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 (ICC); Butt for ten years, Asif for seven and Amir for five.^[30] 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.^[31]

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 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 spreads 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

Since gambling pre-dates recorded history it comes as little surprise that evidence of match fixing is found throughout recorded history. The ancient Olympic Games were almost constantly dealing with allegations of athletes accepting bribes to lose a competition^[32] and city-states which often tried to manipulate the outcome with large amounts of money. These activities went on despite the oath each athlete took to protect the integrity of the events and the severe punishment sometimes inflicted on those who were caught. Chariot racing 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 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 also became plagued by match fixing despite efforts by the National League to stop gambling at its games. Matters finally came to a head in 1919 when eight members of the Chicago White Sox threw the World Series (see Black Sox Scandal). In an effort to restore confidence, Major League Baseball established the office of the Baseball Commissioner, 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 on betting on a player's own games. A poster with Rule 21 must be posted on all professional baseball clubhouses.

Japan

Yaochō (八百長) 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. 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, who had once been a sumo wrestler "Kashiwado Sogoro" (former shikona: "Kyonosato") and now was a "toshiyori" (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 wrestling.^[33] (See also Match fixing in professional sumo) 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 (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 otherwise their salary would be nothing, literally 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 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, whereby 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.e. 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 nigh-impossible to prove.^[34]

Professional wrestling

In professional wrestling, most matches have predetermined results; however, as it is an open secret that professional wrestling is staged, it is not considered match fixing.

Up until the 1920s, professional wrestling was a legitimate sport. This did not endure as professional wrestling became identified with modern theatrics or admitted fakery ("kayfabe"), moving away from actual competition. The worked nature of the art have made critics consider it an illegitimate sport, particularly in comparison to boxing, amateur wrestling, and, in more recent times, mixed martial arts.

Many individuals began to doubt the legitimacy of wrestling after the retirement of Frank Gotch in 1913.^[35] As wrestling's popularity was diving around the same time that Major League Baseball 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 of the 1920s.^[35] Even after the formation of the National Wrestling Alliance in 1948, wrestling continued to have legitimacy issues.

Nevertheless, wrestling was still regulated by state athletic commissions in the United States well into the 1980s, until Vince McMahon, owner of the World Wrestling Federation, convinced the state of New Jersey in 1989 that wrestling was considered a form of entertainment (or sports entertainment, as McMahon used) rather than as a legitimate sport, and that it should not be regulated by state athletic commissions.^[36] 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.^[36]

Today, despite the staged aspects of wrestling, it is still seen as a legitimate sport in several countries, such as Canada, Japan, Mexico, and the United Kingdom, while it is seen as a form of entertainment in the United States similar to that of the Harlem Globetrotters. 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.^[37][38]

See also

• Bookmaker
• 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
• Organized crime
• 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 maniuplate certain portions of a match)
• Team orders

References