Betting on sports has always attracted a lot of charlatans. The reason is banal – a person’s belief in easy money. Beginner gamblers dream to multiply their capitals quickly and easily, and the great combinators from betting wish to get these capitals and pass themselves off as a gold mine. In this article we will tell you exactly what tricks are used by fraudsters in sports betting and how beginners can avoid getting caught in the net spread at every step.
Selling match-fixing… Allegedly
Let’s start with the most widespread and worn in the teeth scheme of fraud. This, of course, selling “match-fixing”. Success of this scheme ensures primarily the fact that fake matches in sports is really a lot: news about them every now and then published on sports sites and “Bookmaker Rating”.
And after reading the news about the exposure of a whole network of organizers of match-fixing, a player thinks how great it would be to possess this information and bet large sums of money without risk. After all, the outcome or even the exact score of the match is known in advance! And the aspiring millionaire has only one thing to do: to find people who have information about match-fixing and are willing to sell it.
Do match-fixing games exist?
Yes, they do exist but only a few can enter the match-fixing business. Usually, they are professional bettors, high rollers who are contacted by an informant or someone who bets on match-fixing matches and looks for a partner with a big amount of money on his account. Capital investment in this case is needed solid.
Where does our would-be millionaire go? To the Internet. You can find hundreds of sites which sell information about match-fixing games. And if you are using social networks or you are a member of a betting and sports betting community, you do not even need to look for anything: You will be found and offered to buy information about a fix-rate. Sometimes even in bulk!
However, it’s all one big scam. Let’s find out why this is so.
First of all, a very small circle of people know until the very last minute that the match will go according to a known scenario. These are 1) the organizer of the theatrical performance (or a group of organizers), 2) the customer who bought the information or ordered the match and is going to bet and 3) the athlete (or athletes).
Why? Contractual events are often organized in small competitions and bets on such events are not accepted by all offices. It may happen that the desired match is in the line only a couple or three bookmakers.
How would they react to the fact that from dozens of accounts, moreover, newly registered, will be flooded with bets on the same outcome? The answer is obvious – the bookmakers will take the event off the line, and the bets can be calculated as refunds.
The less people know about a rigged match, the higher the probability that the organizers themselves can make money on this match.
Leaking information is possible and actually happens a lot, but usually just before the match, when the customer has already bet, after which someone – an informer or an athlete – leaks the information.
Such information, first of all, is spread offline among “insiders” (and even if it gets on the Internet, you can’t tell if the information you’re selling belongs to that). Secondly, the odds on the real contractual outcome will go down sharply because of the overload after the leakage.
What tricks do scammers use to convince players that their information is true? We have been in the field of sports betting and forecasting for a very long time, and the schemes of cheating on the sale of “match-fixing” have not changed over the years.
The simplest one is screenshots with big winnings in bets on decent odds. According to the scammer’s plan, this should be an argument for the veracity of his information.
This can be screenshots of past winnings or a bet on a future match, information about which you are offered to buy. Naturally, the names of the teams are blurred, and only the high odds and the large amount of bets are visible. Why is it a scam? Because today it’s very easy to fake any screenshot. You don’t even need Photoshop: everything is done easily by editing the source code in your browser.
Also, many not particularly advanced scammers take as an assistant site of a particular bookmaker’s office, which has a guest login with virtual money. There you can bet 1000 virtual dollars on any event, make a screenshot and pass it off as a bet on an allegedly rigged match.
Further, you won’t necessarily be asked to pay in advance for a “match-fixing”: it costs the pseudo-informer nothing, you are given the bet at random, and so it is easier for him to gain your trust. If this bet will pass, you will have to pay for it. Moreover, some scammers do not chase the momentary earnings on the “sucker” and strive to bait the client, offering the first match arranged for free.
Many players lose the thread of thought just when the first bet wins. Even if a person initially doubts the truthfulness of the “informer,” after that his doubts are dispelled and he is hooked. The person is willing to pay for the next match, and often quite decent money.
However, the fact that one or two or three bets have played out is not proof in any way! It’s luck, nothing else.
In addition to the outcome or the total, there is another kind of information that most impresses players – a bet on the exact score of the match. Here, the scammers are armed with the following trick: the scammer sends customers different information. He informs one group of people about the score 1-0, another group about 1-1, and so on. The same scheme, in general, can be used in the case of the outcome of the match.
Some of the potential customers get the information, which turns out to be correct, and they are already hooked. I personally made similar experiments: we wrote to these “informers” from different accounts, got different predictions about the same match and got them out in the open.
As a field for creativity this kind of scammers uses mostly South American soccer: Colombia, Chile, Ecuador, Argentina. I don’t know why, but that’s a fact. Perhaps the calculation is that the region’s soccer is not particularly rich in money, and players are forced to regularly turn in matches to make a decent living.
There are also those who are allegedly a future participant in a match arranged, that is, one of the players, of course, of the domestic team. Or a close associate of a player. Fantasy works, but in general the scheme is the same and has not changed for many years.
Let’s highlight 4 rules that will keep you away from such frauds as “match-fixing sales”:
- Remember a simple rule as a dogma: there is no information about match-fixing on the Internet! It is just a fairy tale and trying to turn this fairy tale into reality will lead you to financial losses in the end.
- If you happen to bet money on a pseudo match, you pay nothing even if you win. You just got lucky! If you were given information on the exact score of a soccer match, you took a chance and bet money on it and miraculously won, it means only one thing: Today is your day! Do not get hooked in any way. And if a good thing, just do not communicate with the scammer!
- Do not make checks on the “informants. Most of the time, of course, they will fail completely with their “match-fixing,” but you can fall on their lucky day, and doubts may creep into your head. But then again, it’s always just a happy accident. They just got lucky!
- If you decide to get into a discussion, ask the scammer one simple question: “Why are you sitting on a social network trying to sell your information for a measly $5, instead of hustling and borrowing as much money as you can from friends and acquaintances to put more yourself or find a big client?” Almost always they have nothing to answer.