[HN Gopher] A small-town police officer took down a large match-...
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A small-town police officer took down a large match-fixing ring in
tennis
Author : saeedesmaili
Score : 62 points
Date : 2023-09-08 11:49 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.washingtonpost.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.washingtonpost.com)
| RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote:
| > Borremans was a tall, slender man with searching blue eyes and
| a bald head who cycled 40 miles to and from work every day. He
| was the son of a cheese vendor. Borremans joined the police force
| at 19 and worked for years in a carjacking unit. Once, he broke
| up a criminal network trafficking luxury cars between the Belgian
| port city of Antwerp and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
|
| Does that paragraph strike anyone else as strange being in a top
| tier newspaper like The Washington Post? It reads like a grade
| school essay where the student is trying to stuff a bunch of
| miscellaneous facts into a paragraph rather than the polished
| prose you usually see in a top tier newspaper.
| cafard wrote:
| I have been reading The Washington Post regularly for 45 years,
| and very little that I encounter in it surprises me. It has
| never seemed particularly well edited.
| janc_ wrote:
| It sounds like a journalist trying to sketch a background, to
| make the story relatable to ordinary readers. You don't have to
| be a superhero to do your job well...
| bizzybez wrote:
| Not unusual at all for long-form journalism.
| rootsudo wrote:
| Just amazing how much work goes into, something that isn't
| really, that worthwhile.
|
| So one match fixing ring is down for the count and.... This
| solves what? "Repetitional risk of tennis?
|
| The only interesting thing is how cheap it is to get a player to
| throw a match. $40,000 high end, average 10,-15,000. Us dollars.
|
| But maybe I'm confused. Is this really a crime?
| sidewndr46 wrote:
| I've never really understood why match fixing or throwing a
| match would be a crime. It takes what is a private matter
| between competitors and a league organizer and makes it a
| public matter that the courts supposedly can deal with.
|
| If it was a private matter leagues would be inclined to either
| self-police the behavior or just admit the whole thing is
| rigged. I mean, WWE seems to do just fine with a completely
| fixed system.
| raincom wrote:
| It is a 'crime against sports'!
| jstarfish wrote:
| > I've never really understood why match fixing or throwing a
| match would be a crime.
|
| It's institutionalized fraud, and a fundraising method for
| organized crime.
|
| > WWE seems to do just fine with a completely fixed system.
|
| Nobody is currently permitted to wager anything on those
| fixed WWE matches.
|
| As with all other regulations intended to protect idiots from
| themselves, the industry is looking to repeal it.
| sidewndr46 wrote:
| I'm fine with banning all forms of gambling in the United
| States
| throw101010 wrote:
| Would prohibition really work? It's not like there isn't
| already a large network of illegal betting in place for
| all the bets that can't happen legally... it would simply
| make them thrive even more.
|
| Making things illegal/banned might feel good at first,
| but if it's barely enforceable and/or the demand for that
| thing remains very high all you are doing, as a state, is
| foregoing on a lot of taxes while not even diminishing
| harm often (sometimes even causing your own harm... I'm
| looking at you "war on drugs"... and before that the
| alcohol prohibition).
| FridayNightTV wrote:
| [flagged]
| rootsudo wrote:
| Me too. But how do we differ economic gambling vs sports?
| Only allowed to do it through a broker and not a casino?
| sidewndr46 wrote:
| I don't know what you mean by economic gambling
| rootsudo wrote:
| Speculation. Stock markets, futures, options, etc.
| smcin wrote:
| 'financial speculation'
| callalex wrote:
| Prediction Markets come to mind as an egregious example.
| freeopinion wrote:
| Let's say we have a game with time running out and the
| winning team has the ball. They can take a knee and win
| by 10 or they can kick a field goal and win by 13. They
| can dribble out the last 7 seconds and win by 8 or they
| can shoot a 3 and try to win by 11.
|
| If they are good sports and just kill the clock, is that
| fraud? If somebody pays them to kill the clock and not
| cover the spread, is that fraud?
|
| Is risk of somebody manipulating the outcome like this
| just part of what makes it a gamble?
| smogcutter wrote:
| > If somebody pays them to kill the clock and not cover
| the spread, is that fraud?
|
| Yes. It's called point shaving and it is fraud.
| simplicio wrote:
| I think the problem is that, historically, leagues claim to
| self-police but then the amounts of $ involved ends up
| meaning enough individuals can be bribed/threatened/etc. that
| "fair" matches end up fixed. In the best case, this ends up
| as fraud and so ends up in the courts anyways, in the worst
| case, the amounts of $ at play mean people turn to violence
| and...well that ends up in the courts. So think the idea is
| that we're better off just making it a public matter from the
| start, rather then waiting till things escalate into other
| forms of crime.
| rootsudo wrote:
| "WWE seems to do just fine with a completely fixed system."
|
| Exactly, that's what I don't get. Is the criminal act that
| it's a 3rd party person and not the league itself?
| mistrial9 wrote:
| corruption is a team sport
| smcin wrote:
| You cannot legally wager on WWE anywhere in the US,
| currently (or I imagine anywhere outside it either).
| [https://www.forbes.com/betting/novelty/wwe/] I didn't know
| anyone took it seriously as a sport, let alone would want
| to bet on it. But apparently yes. It's hilarious to hear
| the term _" Academy Awards... a fixed entertainment
| event"_. (Waiting for cynics to mention elections.)
|
| > _According to a March 2023 CNBC report, WWE--which
| produces fixed sports-style events such as WrestleMania and
| Royal Rumble--wants to quell gambling regulator concerns by
| reducing the chances that high-profile match outcomes leak
| to the public._
|
| > _WWE is "working with" the accounting firm EY, better
| known as Ernst & Young. EY and rival PwC have helped
| safeguard results for the Academy Awards, a fixed
| entertainment event available for wagering in select sports
| betting states. As it stands, betting operators like
| DraftKings Sportsbook, FanDuel Sportsbook, BetMGM
| Sportsbook and Caesars Sportsbook have offered limited
| wagering on the Oscars._
|
| > _WWE, which agreed to merge with UFC... is reportedly
| pursuing regulated wagering in CO, IN, MI. However,
| multiple state gambling regulators disputed the CNBC report
| that used anonymous sources._
| mrob wrote:
| It should be handled by civil law. The leagues sell tickets
| to fair competition. If the players fix the match, then the
| league is selling a defective product, and common sense
| suggests they should refund the ticket sales. And the players
| were presumably contracted to provide fair play, so if they
| damage the league by breech of contract then common sense
| suggests the league should be able to sue the players
| responsible for the cost of the refund. They could require
| players to take out insurance to ensure they'll always be
| able to pay.
|
| Making it a criminal matter is just a subsidy to the gambling
| industry.
| vericiab wrote:
| The second sentence of the article is
|
| > A strange tip had arrived from Belgium's gambling commission.
|
| I can't speak to Belgium specifically, but in many areas one of
| the responsibilities of the gambling/gaming commission is
| ensuring "fair" gambling. So they probably care more about the
| impact of match fixing on the "fairness" of sports betting
| rather than the reputational (I assume that's what you meant
| rather than "repetitional") risk to any particular sport.
|
| When betting is involved, I don't see match fixing as all that
| different from someone bribing a casino employee to use dice
| loaded in their favor or help them cheat in a game of cards. Or
| depending on who's involved, maybe it's more like the casino
| using dice loaded in the casino's favor.
|
| In any case I think it basically amounts to fraud. The
| published odds are inaccurate because the outcome has been
| fixed, allowing the people aware of that to make money at the
| expense of the people unaware. Fraud is generally a crime, so
| as long as the match fixing isn't reflected in the published
| odds IMO it isn't all that surprising that it's a crime.
| likeclockwork wrote:
| The sports contest is not a gambling game though or even
| inherently part of one. The players are not casino employees
| of any kind.
|
| The fact that a person can bet on anything that doesn't make
| influencing the outcome of events generally a crime.
|
| Influencing outcomes is a natural response to wagering on
| outcomes. If that's fraud and unsavory then maybe the problem
| is the actual institution of gambling and not the manner in
| which people choose to participate.
|
| (I'd also apply this argument to whether insider trading or
| stock manipulation should be illegal.)
| goodbyesf wrote:
| > So they probably care more about the impact of match fixing
| on the "fairness" of sports betting
|
| Not the 'fairness' of sports betting, but the impact on the
| sports betting industry. If people think sporting matches are
| fixed, they will stop gambling which is bad news for the
| gambling industry. It's why the NFL, which is now in bed with
| the gambling industry, is so paranoid about players gambling.
| It not only is bad for the NFL, but especially so for the
| gambling industry they are partnering with.
| eszed wrote:
| >Is this really a crime?
|
| Looks like it is:
| https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/224
| smcin wrote:
| Why would you answer a question about the legality of match-
| fixing in Belgium at Belgian/European sports betting
| operators, with a citation from US law?
|
| The question asked "Is this a crime", not "Would this be a
| crime _if done in the US?_ "
|
| (Counterfactual: "Why Kinder Surprise Eggs are Illegal in the
| U.S.": https://www.distractify.com/p/why-are-kinder-eggs-
| illegal. Short answer: banned since 1997 by US CPSC, under a
| 1938 US law passed in response to antifreeze in an antibiotic
| medication.)
| rcme wrote:
| Yes, it is a crime. First, the money being paid out to the
| fixer doesn't appear out of thin air. There is a counterparty
| to the transaction that is literally being stolen from when the
| fixer fixes a match. But more importantly, this is likely being
| done to launder money. Dirty money goes to the players and
| clean money comes to the fixers in the form of gambling
| winnings.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > There is a counterparty to the transaction that is
| literally being stolen from when the fixer fixes a match.
|
| Not really. Almost no real persons bet on obscure low rank
| tennis matches... the betting companies know exactly what
| their role in all of this is, they won't bat an eye unless
| you completely screw over their financials or draw attention
| to them - all in all, they still make a fuckton of money.
|
| Most importantly, the "gamblers" usually hedge their bets in
| the case of something going wrong unexpectedly. That keeps
| the risk low on average for the "gamblers", the loss from the
| betting service's profit and taxes (aka the spread between
| win/loss quotas) is way cheaper than other commonly used
| forms of money laundering.
|
| Hell, you can launder money with gambling just fine even if
| you're not involved in fixing matches. Been a decade ago
| since I had someone explain this to me (I worked in a
| bar/slot machine joint, adjacent to a betting place), but in
| general it works by having a ton of people, immigrants from
| the mastermind's network, using combination bets (e.g. 4 out
| of 6) with "safe" bets (i.e. pay-outs just an inch above pay-
| in). They would get 1000EUR in the morning, spend all their
| day at the betting place, and return the money and betting
| slips to account for it. Even if they'd lose a few hundred,
| the bosses didn't care as long as they got the slips to back
| it up. Cops can't do a thing as the bets are all legit and
| taxes been paid.
| quickthrower2 wrote:
| I don't get it. If this is true why don't the betting
| companies just not offer low ranking matches?
| EricDeb wrote:
| Tennis players make like no money unless you are top 80 in the
| world so yea I imagine it wouldn't cost much to get a match
| thrown
| cvccvroomvroom wrote:
| https://archive.ph/i0lx1
| [deleted]
| seeknotfind wrote:
| Largest KNOWN match-fixing ring in tennis.
| dang wrote:
| Ok, we've made it just large in the title above.
| paganel wrote:
| This is just scratching the surface, if that.
|
| Just the previous weekend I heard a guy I knew talk about how he
| was in the stands at a women't ITF tournament match in a middle-
| sized city here in Romania.
|
| The "stands" is a big word according to him, there were the two
| players on the field, their respective coaches and a fence-like
| structure which separated this guy, one of the couple of
| spectators there, from the match itself. He was telling us how he
| could bet during the match for "esoteric" things like what player
| was going to break next and things like that, and that he made a
| nice chunk of money betting that the match was going to be a
| succession of break games. He was also telling us how both of the
| coaches were also on their phones throughout the match, most
| probably not to instant message or to post on social media.
|
| Online sports betting has ruined sports.
| janc_ wrote:
| Most ITF players can't afford coaches to travel with them; you
| really need to play ATF/WTA successfully or have a rich sponsor
| for that...
|
| (And by "successfully", I mean you have to be top-100 , or at
| least close to it)
| paganel wrote:
| They were probably close family or something similar, which
| substitutes for coaching for many such players anyway.
| janc_ wrote:
| Or the "coaches" were self-funding...
|
| Unfortunately, the financial difficulties of being a player
| outside top-100 invite organized crime involvement like
| this...
| 3seashells wrote:
| So jam comes, ruin bets?
| rcme wrote:
| So the lackey gets 5 years in prison, the players are let off the
| hook and the mafia directing and financing the operation isn't
| even investigated. Is organized crime a joke in Europe?
| Apparently millions of dollars were being laundered through this
| scheme. How much illegal activity went into generating the
| capital?
| rurban wrote:
| Organized crime seems more like a joke in the US. There they
| did nothing at all
| vuln wrote:
| > Organized crime seems more like a joke in the US. There
| they did nothing at all
|
| That just, your opinion, man.
| kjkjadksj wrote:
| Italy would like a word.
| nomat wrote:
| apparently corruption runs rampant throughout all of europe.
| from the banks that facilitate the laundering of funds, to the
| port authorities that allow boatloads of cocaine from Colombian
| cartels, to the criminal states like albania. DW has a video
| called "The cartels of Marseille" that goes into the drug side
| of it. but of course there is art, human trafficking, weapons
| dealing, etc.
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(page generated 2023-09-09 23:00 UTC)