Just after Spain took the cup there were many blog posts, scraps, etc. stormed the internet saying "it’s all fixed", "all sports are fixed" etc. I saw many of my contacts on FB mentioning the similar this.
I too think this happens in cricket, but I did not feel it happened with FIFA this year. I have reasons to say that. To understand my reason we need to understand the basic reason of fixing and understand each step that leads to fixing the outcome of a sport or an event.
What is fixing?
Fixing is when a person or a group or people or an organization pays or blackmails the player/players/team/teams to under perform and deliberately lose.
Who does that Fixing?
Usually the bookies. Organizations or operatives who are the mediators of betting on a particular sport (usually it’s a sport but not limited to).
Why do they do that?
To understand what do they do that we need to understand the gambling/betting system. We take a hypothical scenario where Team is the best team and most likely to win the compeition. Team B is second best and poses some changes to win. Similarly for team C with very less chances and team D with no chance at all.
The bookie would pay less money in return for better teams. For example: if you place your bet on team A of Rs.100 you may get Rs.110 if the team wins. Similarly for team B Rs.125, for team C Rs.150 and for team D Rs.200. Why do they do it this way? So that they can make most of the profit. Team A has more chances to win so everyone is going to place their bets on them so the return is less and vice versa for team D. I hope you are clear about this.
If team D wins the championship they have very less number of people to repay, so they will not mind paying. But the real trouble is when team A is sure to win. They will have to repay to a lot of people and they will of course not make profit but incur loss and they will have to pay from their own pockets. So they bribe the players of team A to lose and let the other team win.
This doesn’t get very dirty is team A and team B are in finals because there would be many people to place their bets on team B as well. Even if they suffer a loss, the amount of loss with is very less. The worst case scenario is when team A and team D are facing each other in the finals and it is almost sure that team A will win.
Real life example that happened this year:
The Indian Premium League (IPL 3 - 2010) saw a dominating Mumbai Indians face of with Chennai Super Kings in the finals. Here Mumbai Indians were a strong team all season and were almost destined to win. They were team A from the above example. On the other hand Super Kings were not doing very well in the season and they had just managed to get the place in the finals. Most of the bets were on Mumbai Indians because they looked more promising. The results were, Chennai Super Kings taking the cup and Mumbai Indians playing the worst match they could. If Mumbai Indians would have won, the bookies would have to pay a lot of people a lot of money, even from their own pockets. This maybe a coincidences but how many times in the past have we seen cricket and fixing being connected? Yes many times.
Why Fifa 2010 was not fixed?
In Fifa finals Team A was surely Spain who had made it to the finals by winning over some good teams and Netherland had reached the finals with very small margins. Spain was also the euro chaps and was hot picks for everyone to place their bets on. So the theory that applies in the IPL match also applies here.
I too think this happens in cricket, but I did not feel it happened with FIFA this year. I have reasons to say that. To understand my reason we need to understand the basic reason of fixing and understand each step that leads to fixing the outcome of a sport or an event.
What is fixing?
Fixing is when a person or a group or people or an organization pays or blackmails the player/players/team/teams to under perform and deliberately lose.
Who does that Fixing?
Usually the bookies. Organizations or operatives who are the mediators of betting on a particular sport (usually it’s a sport but not limited to).
Why do they do that?
To understand what do they do that we need to understand the gambling/betting system. We take a hypothical scenario where Team is the best team and most likely to win the compeition. Team B is second best and poses some changes to win. Similarly for team C with very less chances and team D with no chance at all.
The bookie would pay less money in return for better teams. For example: if you place your bet on team A of Rs.100 you may get Rs.110 if the team wins. Similarly for team B Rs.125, for team C Rs.150 and for team D Rs.200. Why do they do it this way? So that they can make most of the profit. Team A has more chances to win so everyone is going to place their bets on them so the return is less and vice versa for team D. I hope you are clear about this.
If team D wins the championship they have very less number of people to repay, so they will not mind paying. But the real trouble is when team A is sure to win. They will have to repay to a lot of people and they will of course not make profit but incur loss and they will have to pay from their own pockets. So they bribe the players of team A to lose and let the other team win.
This doesn’t get very dirty is team A and team B are in finals because there would be many people to place their bets on team B as well. Even if they suffer a loss, the amount of loss with is very less. The worst case scenario is when team A and team D are facing each other in the finals and it is almost sure that team A will win.
Real life example that happened this year:
The Indian Premium League (IPL 3 - 2010) saw a dominating Mumbai Indians face of with Chennai Super Kings in the finals. Here Mumbai Indians were a strong team all season and were almost destined to win. They were team A from the above example. On the other hand Super Kings were not doing very well in the season and they had just managed to get the place in the finals. Most of the bets were on Mumbai Indians because they looked more promising. The results were, Chennai Super Kings taking the cup and Mumbai Indians playing the worst match they could. If Mumbai Indians would have won, the bookies would have to pay a lot of people a lot of money, even from their own pockets. This maybe a coincidences but how many times in the past have we seen cricket and fixing being connected? Yes many times.
Why Fifa 2010 was not fixed?
In Fifa finals Team A was surely Spain who had made it to the finals by winning over some good teams and Netherland had reached the finals with very small margins. Spain was also the euro chaps and was hot picks for everyone to place their bets on. So the theory that applies in the IPL match also applies here.
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