Since there was $7 million bet on the Davydenko match it is hard to picture him making more for winning the tournament than he could scam by backing his opponent.
I actually backed Davydenko in this match. Fortunately in Australia for many, many years bookmakers have declared all bets null and void for results such as retirements and disqualifications.
If this were the universal rule it would stop it happening.
Apparently back in the depression days it used to be common for a good boxer to back his vastly inferior opponent and then “lose” by hitting him in the groin a few times.
He’s made about $8.6 million in his career. Crazier things have happened, but I don’t think he’d throw that away in taking a dive in this tournament. I also think that if the answer were as simple as the player himself taking a dive, that probably would have come out by now. But who knows.
The people who are most affected by cheating have the most interest if spotting it. Bookies would lose money if people were not betting according to their predicted patterns. How would congress or the police have access to those records.
So, in summation, it’s not ironic in the least. It’s what you’d expect from an commercial business that is trying to reduce their risk and spot people trying to cheat them. I don’t know what you’re trying to prove at this point, but your argument isn’t making much sense.
It is ironic because the cops and leagues were not aware until a gambling company found out. You would expect the law or league to root out the perps. But it ironically was discovered by a gambling house. The fact that they were aware because it is their business is irrelevant. The business they were in makes it ironic.
No, you are wrong for many reasons, but the main one is that cops and the leagues don’t have access to the betting information like the gambling houses do. The gambling houses are looking for irregular betting patterns and they’re the only ones who have access to the data. No one else but the bookies could possibly detect this. Plus, it’s their job to analyze betting patterns in order to set the odds. This is what they do; it’s how they make money. If they are bad at it they go out of business. If people cheat they go out of business. It’s the same reason that insurance companies are so heavily involved in catching car thieves and injury fraud rings.
It’s not ironic in any way, shape, or form; it’s simple logic. Either that or you are using a definition of ironic that doesn’t match most people’s usage.