So, do you still want to bet on tennis?

https://gma.yahoo.com/tennis-star-n...-200k-fix-173330366--abc-news-topstories.html

 

Depends. Several condition would need to be met...

 

No because I'm a big *****.

 

Well played my man... Well played!

 

Seriously though, who the hell would bet on tennis in the first place. It's like boxing or golf... The fix would be so easy to put in there's no way you could get a fair shake...

 

Huge gambling sport and full of fixes apparently.

 

I do know this one guy...

 

In order to gamble on tennis wouldn't you first have to watch tennis? And who wants to do that.

 

yeah in order to "still want to gamble on tennis" I'd have had to want to at some prior point

 

With you 100%.

 

#doesntgetit

 

I thought tennis courts were just places for homeless people to hang out and gang members to spray paint

 

What's tennis?

 

An odd sport where men play with fuzzy balls. Might as well call it Tuesday night at NY's house.

 

Who bets on a hobby?

 

I'm scared to know the bets that take place there.

 

You should be. Trust me, you should be.

One night in Bangkok makes a hard man humble. One night in NYYs house makes a hard man cry.

 

Yes.

I agree that match fixing is more than enough to give a betting man pause at the challenger level. Those guys ain't making much money, and so the incentive is there.

I disagree that match fixing is rampant at the ATP level. in fact, I'm certain that it is very very rare. Top guys have basically no incentive to do it. The one documented case where a top 20 player fixed a match is Davydenko, and in that case the russian mob was involved, and so I guess his incentive was there in that his incentive was "don't die". The article alleges that former grand slam champions have been implicated. I looked into this further, and that's more than a bit misleading: the grand slam champions were grand slam champions in either doubles or mixed doubles. I would bet absolutely every single thing thatI own that no current grand slam champion tennis player has fixed a match.

Novak Djokovic acknowledged that he was approached to fix a match in 2008 and was offered $200K to do so. That, in and of itself, illustrates how unlikely it is to infilatrate into the top level of tennis. They'd need to be able to offer much more than that.

Finally, the tennis integrity unit was formed in 2008 mostly upon information that the article is referring to (but that just didn't make it out into anybody in the general public's hands until years later, it appears). The players know this is not something to be trifled with. You fix a match, your career is over.

I did find the article interesting in that it alleges the involvement of top 50 players. There obviously wasn't a strong enough case to pursue bans against these guys, so I wonder what the evidence was at all. lower level players at teh challenger and future level have been caught and banned for life or several years for match fixing. I'm actually glad to see the article, because it raises awareness on the potentials for it in the sport, and thus makes it even more difficult to do.

To clarify, I still bet on tennis, and in fact have a pending bet corresponding to a match that is going on even as I type this.

 

You actually wouldn't. Some professional gamblers make a living on tennis without ever watching a match. The bets are purely algorithmically driven and are based on fancy "data analysis" that many on this board disparage. But in tennis, it's hard to deny how crucial this data is in a game where the scoring system can be broken down neatly into a state diagram: http://www.mathaware.org/mam/2010/essays/NoubaryTennis.pdf

So the answer is no, but you aren't particularly bright. You wouldn't be performing any data driven analysis. So for you I guess the answer would be yes. If you don't enjoy watching tennis, it sounds like you will have to just leave that free money on the table.

 

Second biggest gambling sport in the world.

Fixing is an inherent problem that always always needs to be aggressively sought out and prosecuted. It is unquestionably the easiest sport to fix. Tennis authorities are aware of this.