Full disclosure: I’m not a sports fan, so I don’t care who wins or loses.
I know it’s against the rules of the various sports organizations to fix a game or match, but is it illegal by law, and if so why?
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Well, some sports are fixed, right? Like, say, professional wrestling?
Vince McMahon sells his product as “entertainment,” not “sport,” although it is based in sport.
I think the OP is asking, for example, while the infamous “Black Sox” players got kicked out of baseball, did the guy who propositioned/paid the players (not a baseball player) get tried in a court of law and what law did he break?
Before the Black Sox were kicked out of baseball they and several gamblers had been indicted for conspiracy to defraud the public. All were acquitted after Cicotte’s and Jackson’s confessions were “lost”.
I meant to add that this is the charge against British jockey Kieren Fallon for race fixing as well.
Isn’t doing anything to fix or otherwise meddle with a boxing match illegal in Nevada?
Well, a little more of what I was thinking:
The NFL (or NHL, NBA, MLB, whatever) is a company that organizes sporting events among its members. A scripted outcome might possibly present the opportunity for more interesting outcomes than might naturally occur.
And this is assuming that if that were the case that the public knew that outcomes were scripted.
Again, I’m not a sports fan, so I don’t see a moral problem with faked games provided that everyone knew that that was the case (as with pro wrestling in the McMahon era).
Perhaps, and this just guessing, that millions of dollars trade hands on the ownership of teams, the marketing of teams, and the betting on teams. It is big business both legal and under the table. Big money=legislative interest=laws involved. Unfortunately not of that big money goes to legislation to keep it honest…
“participating in a bribery scheme to influence sporting contests”
One of the commonest reasons to fix a sporting event is for the players and managers to make large sums of money by betting on an unlikely outcome at high odds. This would seem to be a clear case of fraud.
The recent (highly improbable) win by Ireland v. Pakistan in the Cricket World Cup was most likely a case in point. Pakistan may well have thrown the match; there was a lot of betting on Ireland apparently.
I am pretty sure that every U.S. state now has a law that specifically prohibits the fixing of any sporting event, professional or amateur.
In California, Section 337 of the Penal Code covers this and makes specific exceptions for professional wrestling.
At the time of the Black Sox scandal, there were no laws specific to fixed sports events. The eight Black Sox players were indicted along with five low-level gamblers for conspiracy to “commit a confidence game”, to defraud the public and their honest teammates, and to injure the business of the American League and the White Sox owner, Charles Comiskey.
Each of these charges was problematic in its own way, which is one reason the defendants were acquitted. The other reason is that the signed confessions of several of the ballplayers disappeared.
Since that time, most (all?) states have passed specific laws against fixing sports events. Few high-level professionals would fix an American event these days, as the rewards from honest play are too great, but there have been college point-shaving scandals. Northwestern basketball player Dion Lee did a month of hard time for “sports bribery” in 1998.
As for why such laws were passed, how can one answer? Legislators thought fixed sports events were a bad thing. Sports are big money, and legislators are naturally sensitive to anything that threatens a significant sector of the economy. Fixed events tend to result in threats of violence if the target player can’t or won’t deliver. But mostly, people get honked off when they pay to watch honest competition and get hoodwinked, and legislators respond.
Yeah, I get that. But more to the point where I was trying to head was sports as simply entertainment, like the WWE, and its various counterparts back in the old “territory days” (when it was called the WWWF). I don’t yet see anything making an “exhibition only” type sports organization illegal, although the economics of it are such that I don’t know that it could viably compete with the existing products. For example, McMahon’s XFL of a few years ago: don’t know if that was supposed to be legit competition or pre-determined, but it didn’t work out very well.
And every other era.
Well, in the McMahon era, the product is presented as entertainment, not a legitmate sport. Up until the early '80s, promoters sold it as real competition.
I suspect he does so out of necessity. Pro wrestling has *always *been fake, since way before the early '80’s. Perhaps even the 1880’s.
The promoters may have “sold” it as real competition, but discerning observers were not buying.
IMO, the fact that no bookie will lay odds on a pro match, and none ever has, tells you all you need to know about the legitimacy of the competition.
OK. I’m not sure what your point is, as nothing in your response was groundbreaking information, but thanks for the bump.
Hey, it’s pure Columbian flake, Bro.
Boy, are you people naive – pro wrestling is the only sport that’s not fixed!
According to Listen, You Pencil Neck Geeks, the autobiography of “Classie” Fred Blassie, McMahon was the first wrestling promoter to officially acknowledge that the matches were “sports entertainment”. This was in conjunction with Wrestlemania and McMahon’s consolidation of pro wrestling into a national sport, which he knew would bring mainstream media attention that would force the admission that he made.
Wrestling had previously been a bunch of regional fiefdoms run by shady characters who avoided the mainstream media for just this reason. McMahon raided the local circuits for talent (probably risking his life in the process) and created what John Waters described as “… wrestling: the one good sport, now ruined by Cindy Lauper”.