Still trying desperately to get people to notice you?

From the NBC.com archives:

"I'll betcha five bucks you can't guess how much money was bet on the Super Bowl this year. Double or nothing: How much do Americans wager on March Madness annually?

Sports betting is big money, and a bid by New Jersey to get a piece of the action is easily understood when you consider some of these numbers:

According to the Nevada Gaming Commission, $3.2 billion was wagered in sports bets in the state’s casinos in 2011. Of that amount, $1.34 billion or 41 percent was handled just for football.

Sports fans bet a record $98.9 million at Nevada casinos on Super Bowl XLVII, according to the American Gaming Association. After paying out to bettors, Nevada sports books earned $7.2 million on 2013’s game.

Extrapolating from Nevada data, the financial planning website Mint estimates that more than $8 billion is wagered every year on the Super Bowl alone. An estimated 200 million people making wagers on the outcome of the game worldwide.

Between [u$60-70 billion[/u is illegally wagered on college football each year according to CNBC.

Thirty-three million Americans participate in fantasy football, according to the Fantasy Sports Trade Association. The FSTA found that $1.18 billion changes hands between players through pools each year.

Between [u$30-40 billion[/u is illegally wagered on Major League Baseball each year, according to CNBC. Baseball is not as big of a betting sport because of the lack of point spreads.

The FBI estimates that more than $2.5 billion is illegally wagered annually on the three-week March Madness postseason tournament each year, according to the AGA.

As much as 25 percent of illegal wagers placed on college basketball games each year comes during March Madness, according to CNBC.

Sports book operators estimate $80 million to $90 million — less than 4 percent of the illegal take — is wagered on the NCAA tournament legally through Nevada’s 216sports books, says the AGA.

One in 10 Americans play March Madness brackets according the data-processing website, wagersolutions.com."

I bet you're fun at parties.

I bet you are eminently forgettable.

Coming from you that's laughable. I hope the CIA or Zionists catch up with you, you're of little use to wider society. Better get that tinfoil hat on.

Do you feel better now?

Looks like Martin Standee Eastcoast is up to his old tricks on here & the FC board, trying to antagonise other users & contributing nothing.

Obviously the two previous bans he's had didn't mean anything. A repeat offender.

No problems. I've been meaning to turf a few people for a bit. And this is an interesting topic to discuss.

And before I cop a ton of criticism for not allowing folk to vent their spleen - there are only two such threads. And this isn't one of them.

Is there criminality in sports betting? Given that there is criminality in every aspect of life that involves money - most certainly yes.

Is sport routinely and systemically rigged? Unlikely.

It's obviously significantly harder to rig a sport like football or rugby because of the team nature of the game. You'd have to bribe most of the team. Even if you could get to the referee it's still difficult to definitely rig a game. Plus of course you've got footballers (and some Union players) who are paid so much it's not worth the risk of taking a bribe.

Where I think it's more likely is in sports like tennis, cricket, athletics and maybe golf. Very popular, worldwide sports that attract large amounts of betting money and you've got much more scope for affecting a result (or a certain situation as with spot betting). I get the feeling we've only just scratched the surface in discovering corruption with betting or drug taking in these sports.

you're an imbecilic dictator, singlehandedly killed The Sin Bin, there's little wonder it's only you that posts regularly.

To rig an entire competition you wouldn't use players. It's simply not feasible.

However, it's ENTIRELY feasible to find a dozen officials who will do as they are told and keep their mouths shut.

Like I said - it's BAD BUSINESS not to rig a competition if you can. The potential profits are mind-boggling.

It's [itechnically[/i feasible, but highly unlikely; in much the same way that a decade spanning, worldwide, multi-national and multi-agency conspiracy to affect all world events is technically feasible, but highly unlikely. People talk - and the more of them involved in any kind of scam, the less likely it remains a secret. Not to mention the algorithms, analysis and technical wizardry employed by large bookmakers, which can spot unusual patterns or behaviour well before any human has to.

There will be incidents of malfeasance - but not on the scale you're alluding to and certainly not in a way that rigs the outcome of a league or competition.

That said - I did see Michael Carter give the new ref a Twix and a bottle of Lucozade before we played Warrington at the weekend...

This is based on WHAT?

Data? Evidence? Or are you just guessing?

Sports fixing will be the focus of Marwan's press conference tomorrow so I'm lead to believe. Referee's brown envelopes, heads need to roll if the evidence is proven. Apparently he has all the evidence. It'll blow the sport to its knees.

Exactly the same basis upon which you put forward the hypothesis; you think it's ENTIRELY feasible, but you have no evidence to say it's actually happening. I posit that it's [itechnically[/i feasible but highly unlikely, without any evidence to say it's not happening.

Does that follow the rules that you've made up in your head, or should I provide some kind of peer reviewed, youtube evidenced, copy/pasted material to back up my opinion?

Quite an indepth knowledge of all that goes on on this board considering you only joined six weeks ago?
Mods... Just out of curiosity, if you are handed a ban are you allowed to just re register under a different username?

Not sure about rigging and the like, but i swear referees on Sky tv games are told to make things.....'interesting'

I'm completely mystified as to why you are attempting to disprove an argument I haven't made. On the other hand you do agree that it is feasible - which IS what I said.



Judging from the above - I wouldn't bother.

It's worth looking at some of the alarming developments in NFL recently. I mean just some of the PROVEN misdemeanors attributed to the New England Patriots (deflating the match ball, bugging the opposition changing rooms etc. etc.) should be enough to raise anyone's concerns.

Of course, rigging an entire competition is a different issue. Although there's a legitimate question whether it would be illegal for the NFL to fix its own games. I thought this question was a no-brainer (just as I thought it was a no-brainer that Tom Brady would know deflating the match ball is illegal) - but I was surprised to discover that a loophole exists.

The notion that it's highly unlikely that a multi-billion-dollar business would eschew even greater profits simply because it would be illegal or ... wait for it ... "conspiratorial" is so utterly ludicrous I feel I shouldn't even be typing this.

If I hired a dozen officials and paid them an attractive salary in exchange for making key calls at selected moments how would you KNOW I'm fixing my competition?

And before someone interjects with the usual [i"But ... someone would talk!"[/i let me point out that after I hired the officials I told them if they ever breathed so much as a word I'd shoot their wives in front of their children ... and then shoot their children.

Jesus H Christ...

Ok - you win - I didn't factor in the shooting of women and children by international sporting bodies; that being the case, all sport is indeed fixed and your incredible investigative skills have uncovered yet another facet of modern life that has escaped the notice of those of us who don't have the INTELLIGENCE or WIT to actually LOOK at the FACTS before us.

I don't know what we'd do without you.

As I have an interest in horse racing its proven history that individuals have been found guilty of fixing the outcome of races on behalf of betting syndicates or just their own bets, horses drugged, jockeys holding the horse back etc etc, but you can also concoct a huge conspiracy theory about the extent of it just by following the races for a few weeks.

As a "for example" I was at Catterick for an evening meeting a couple of weeks ago, at that level (Group 4 and 5 races) it was fairly simple to pick five winners by just going for the favourites in every race, most of the horses were local (who sends a horse more than 50 miles for a £4000 prize fund) and all of the bookies were local so it was local knowledge that picked the favourites and they weren't wrong - it would be easy to "fix" one of those races but VERY noticable and almost everyone in the small crowd seemed to know each other so you wouldn't keep it quiet for long.

For a larger meeting its a different story, horses travel long distances and are even sent from abroad so local knowledge goes out of the window and everyone relies on "the form".

I've lost count of the number of favourites I've followed in a race only to see it finish well back and not come anywhere close to running in the race, are these "fixes" or not, the bookies make the favourites and its not always on form, punters generally back favourites so its safe to say that the three horses on the lowest odds will have most of the stake money riding on them, if they finish nowhere then its worth paying out a handful of punters on longer odds winner - its how it works.

On the other hand horses often turn up at a racecourse and just don't want to run, there aren't many Frankel's around, horses who would burst their heart rather than let another horse take the lead, most of them are very fickle and will turn it on or just not bother and with very tight rules on jockey behaviour there is precious little that can be done if a horse won't race.

Open for corruption or just the fickle nature of horses ?

A horse is not a machine. It has good days and bad days like you and me. One difference is they can't, in the main, talk and so can't tell anyone how well or fit or lethargic or whatever they are feeling on the day.

Next, every horse in training has targets. They are trained to reach a peak at the time those targets come up. If a horse is aimed at a race in a few months time, it is unlikely to run as well now as it will do then.

But then again, depending on how the horse runs in its earlier races, those targets may very well, and very often do, change. Also, sometimes owners get the horses put in to races which the trainer wouldn't choose.

Then on the day we have the going. A horse may be a mudlark, or a strictly top of the ground horse, and run like two different animals in different goings.

The there is race day itself. This can throw up another whole bunch of unpredictable variables. Just for example, sometimes a horse can get itself pretty wound up and stressed in the preliminaries, and have worked off half its energy before the race even starts. And then again, it may get a poor start, maybe stumbling out of the stalls, or getting a slow break. In a short race it may be impossible to recover. And again, the race itself. Your jockey might be up against 9say) 15 other pro jockeys, all wanting prize money, and all literally jockeying for position. You won't get many favours. Your horse could be very unlucky in running, it may end up bumped, or stuck behind a wall of horses, or just generally get a bad run.

And when it gets to the sharp end of the race, one day, your horse may sprout wings and go away from the field, on another day, it might hit the front but start treading water, and get beat.

These are just some of the reasons why horseracing is such an unpredictable sport, ad that's even before you start putting obstacles in the way that additionally they have to jump over.

Then again, you may have set your stall out aimed at (say) a particular handicap race at Doncaster, but it is at least likely that at least one or two, and maybe many more, other trainers have also been doing exactly the same thing. Your horse may run its best race, but so may several others.

There are very many ways for people to deliberately ensure that a horse doesn't run its best (I managed to dig out a link to a very interesting old [url=https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2004/mar/10/horseracing.kenoliverGrauniad article[/url which offers a fascinating insight and is a good read) but while I'm sure a lot of this has always and always will go on, the thing is, it may be easier to guarantee that a horse won't win, but it's not easy to guarantee that it will, and that's where the real money is to be made.

Racing is not fundamentally corrupt, punters in general know the sort of things that go on but if they thought it was all fundamentally corrupt then they would walk away. They don't. The bookmakers also have an ever-better technological handle on unusual betting patterns, and ultimately not many of them end up in the poorhouse. Add to that the obvious self-interest of the Jockey Club in being very keen on detecting sharp practices and I'd say overall racing remains a very good and entertaining betting proposition. In the UK at least.