Are the bookies fixing matches ?

[cosmicway 1,328]

Now that it’s close to beach time for the football players -except for those who are off to Brazil- I feel it’s time to start a discussion about the integrity of the sport.

The European associations are debating it, the euro-parliamentarians are also debating so why not us ?

The aforementioned sometimes, many times rather, like to hide and disguise facts but not me. I speak bold.

First of all I categorize dishonesty in three possible ways:

a - Matches fixed so punters with connections make money.

b - Matches fixed by the sports book companies to increment their profit.
c - Matches fixed for reasons unrelated to gambling (championship-relegation issues).

The authorities recognize a type situations and are making laws against it but not b and c.

Yet we know that match fixing existed for as long as anyone remembers, or allegations to that effect to be more precise. The European championship final of 1961 between Barcelona and Benfica was one such. Because it occupied the press for a long time back in 1961 and it is part of football history, I feel I can talk about it here. We don’t know if it is actually true but the Barcelonistas believe it was sold and it was a week of hell for the players after the match was played in Berne and Benfica won by 3-2. There was no football betting of any kind those days and whatever happened, if happened, was for the dictatorial back then Portugal to get the glory.

The stories of punters cheating the sportsbook are known. There was the gang of Croatia some 10 years ago and others similar.

As for the bookies doing it, I think it is possible that 5-10 replies will appear below crying foul against me.
In anticipation, I apologize to all but there are some 5000 operators out there, including those without EU license. Are they all ok ? Also if they are all ok, what about ten years from now ? I don’t know who is going to be the prime minister next month let alone what will happen 10 years from now.

The bookies operate with a certain percentage takeout every time you place a bet.

It depends on the company.

Thus if you bet for the cup final of the 17^th of May with bet365 you will see that they offer 4/9 for Arsenal to win in the 90 minutes, 10/3 for the draw and 6/1 for Hull to win.

If you perform the relevant algebraic operations, their profit margin comes out as 6.19%.

That follows from the following logic: If they evaluate all the matches correctly and if Arsenal and Hull decide to play every day for the rest of the year and if you keep backing Arsenal you will, as a punter, find yourself 6.19% in the red at the end. Same if you keep backing the draw or Hull’s win, 6.19%.

But that’s only theoretical. On May 17 they might as well have a spillage of Arsenal bets, all due to be paid at 4/9 and therefore if Arsenal do indeed win, they lose some 6.19% instead of profiting it. In that case they are likely to make a profit if Hull wins of say 12%, twice the nominal 6.19%.
One occasion in which the bookies ended up in the red, and the punters in the black, was the 2002 world cup finals in Japan-Korea. The last four matches Germany – South Korea 1-0, Brazil – Turkey 1-0, Turkey – South Korea 3-2 and Brazil – Germany 2-0 (the final), resulted in a bookie defeat and there was some heavy betting as well on account of it being the final stage of the competition.

It makes sense therefore, in my opinion, to make it impossible for the bookies to have differential profit margins on the possible outcomes of matches. Then they will have no reason to act dishonestly, no matter if they do actually ever think of doing so or -alternatively- never entertain such thoughts.
This can be done in two ways:

One is to adopt the pool system. With this, they take the whatever 6.20% belongs to them from the beginning and then they divide the rest among the winners. For the punter this has the drawback that he does n’t know exactly what price he gets in advance, but in practice this is a slight disadvantage as there will be totalizator computers informing us at each stage of the betting process.
It is true that back in the 19^th century, early 20^th century computers did not exist. If I was a punter in those days could I trust a tic-tac man telling me “listen give me your money and I ‘m going to divide it equitably” ? But if he were to say to me “give me your money and I ‘m going to pay you 5 to 2”, then I might trust.
Hence the bookmaking system prevailed, but for the reasons stated above and for some other more esoteric reasons it is not really the best.

Another method is to have fixed prices but also employ strict bet matching, in more or less the way bet exchanges do (betfair, betdaq and others). The situation will also be monitored by a national compliance authority, so there will be no hanky-pankying of any sort.

This is the way things should be, so the sport becomes clean and corruption is dealt with.
And if it will not prove 100% successful, it will be 80% successful which is good enough.

What we see instead being done is more and more restrictions on the punter. The latest is the punter’s ID card that will also be connected to the inland revenue – with whatever consequences for our privacy.
I say ok, do these things but the ball is also on tho other foot.