Super Bowl Betting: Could The Big Game Be Fixed?
Added on Feb 03, 2011 by Jack Thurman in
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Much of the general public has no idea about the reality of sports betting. They live in a fantasy world where syndicates of shady hoodlums work to compromise the integrity of pro and college sports by ‘fixing games’ and ‘shaving points’ for the benefit of ‘the mob’, ‘organized crime’ or ‘big money gamblers’. While there have been isolated occurrences of compromised games throughout history they’re usually poorly orchestrated efforts by low grade thugs. The notion that sporting events are routinely ‘fixed’ for gambling interests is the product of pop culture fantasy and hysterical sports league propaganda efforts. That sort of hysteria is frequently on display around the Super Bowl and especially in the Northeast where cops make high profile busts of smalltime bookies an annual tradition.
But let’s examine the question at hand–could the Super Bowl be fixed? We’ll start by considering the fundamental necessities of any game fixing effort–you need to find a way to compromise the outcome of a sporting event and you need to get enough money down on the game to make it worth the trouble. Anyone familiar with the realities of the sports betting industry will know that neither component is easy to pull off.
By their very nature, compromising the outcome of a team sport is very difficult. Even if you get a few key players ‘on board’ that doesn’t guarantee a favorable outcome. On a theoretical level, it takes a lot of work to ‘buy off’ a team and on a practical level doing this in a NFL game would be all but impossible. You’ve got a minimum of 22 players on both sides of the ball to concern yourself with, plus the players just make too much money. Basketball would be easier from a numerical standpoint, but once again you’ve got a league where the average salary is well over $1 million per year. The superstars make over eight figures a year, making them very tough to bribe.
The second part of the equation may be even more difficult–once you’ve got a game ‘in the tank’ you’ve got to get down enough money to make a profitable return on your investment. Sportsbooks take big bets on the NFL and bigtime college football, but the easier target would be lower profile college programs. The problem there is that it is all but impossible to get enough money down on added board basketball to make it financially viable–and especially without attracting the attention of the bookmaking community that something is up. Few ‘local bookies’ book small college action and even fewer would take wagers big enough to make it profitable. The ones in Nevada and offshore that do didn’t exactly just fall off the turnip truck–if they see something amiss with betting on a game they take notice.
That’s the reason that ‘fixer’ game of choice in recent years is professional tennis. It’s much easier to compromise a single player and easier for him to ‘take a dive’ in a preliminary tournament match that only a few people will watch. While the big stars make millions, the lower level pros could theoretically find financial benefit in tanking a game. Tennis is a favorite betting sport of international bettors, and most sportsbooks in Europe and elsewhere take action on it. Even in tennis, however, the ‘cat may be out of the bag’ as the oversight organizations have become aware of the problem and are more vigilant in their scrutiny of ‘questionable’ games.
So if there is a viable scenario for fixing the Super Bowl, I haven’t heard it. In his book “The Last Don”, one of Mario Puzo’s characters suggests that he can fix the Super Bowl by drugging the catered food of one team. The idea is dismissed as non-viable due to the scrutiny it would receive from the teams, league and media–let alone the FBI. The proliferation of sports media–not to mention the Internet–since Puzo wrote the book in 1996 makes it even less likely now.
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February 14, 12:55 pm
“Basketball would be easier from a numerical standpoint, but once again you’ve got a league where the average salary is well over $1 million per year. The superstars make over eight figures a year, making them very tough to bribe.”
That right there is the bribe. These people are nothing more than high-priced slaves. They sign these big contracts to basically sell their souls and life away – and do as they’re told.