Instruct: Given a question, retrieve relevant passages that answer the question.
Query: Is match fixing illegal?
In organized sports, match fixing occurs as a match is played to a completely or partially pre-determined result, violating the rules of the game and often the law. The most common reason is to obtain a payoff from gamblers, but teams may also intentionally perform poorly to gain a future advantage, such as a better draft pick[upper-alpha 1] or, on paper, a less eminent opponent in a play-off.[upper-alpha 2] A player might also play poorly to rig a handicap system.[1]
In organized sports, match fixing occurs when a match is played to a completely or partially pre-determined result, violating the rules of the game and often the law. There is a variety of reasons for this, but the most common is in exchange for a payoff from gamblers. Players might also intentionally perform poorly to get an advantage in the future (such as a better draft pick, or an easier opponent in a playoff), or to rig a handicap system. Match-fixing generally refers to fixing the final result of the game. Another form of match-fixing, known as spot-fixing, involves fixing small events within a match which can be gambled upon, but which are unlikely to prove decisive in determining the final result of the game.
The iBUYPOWER and NetcodeGuides.com match fixing scandal was a match fixing scandal involving two professional "" ("CS:GO") teams, iBUYPOWER and NetCodeGuides. The scandal has been cited as "the first large match fixing scandal" in the "CS:GO" community.
Perumal is accused on several match fixing scandals, including Asiagate in 2007–2009 and the 2008–2011 Finnish match-fixing scandal. He was first jailed for match-fixing in 1995 in Singapore. In the same year, Perumal traveled to England on behalf of a Singaporean match-fixing boss to fix two FA Cup matches. According to his autobiography, Perumal and an associate attempted to bribe Birmingham's goalkeeper Ian Bennett and Chelsea's goalkeeper Dmitri Kharine, failing both times.
After an arrest warrant was issued for two football players on 25 May 2011 by the Supreme Prosecutors' Office, the K-League's match-fixing case began to surface. The prosecutors arrested two brokers and are investigating 10 players, including Sangju Sangmu Phoenix's striker and former national team member Kim Dong-hyun. The inception of this scandal was the alleged suicide of one footballer named Yoon Ki-Won of Incheon United. His suicide was amplified with the match-fixing allegations through media and football fans. But K-League trying to purified itself and other persons who were involved in match-fixing didn't appear, match-fixing scandal was an open secret in K-League through the illegal betting sites.
By the end of the 19th century gambling was illegal in most jurisdictions, but that did not stop its widespread practice. Boxing soon became rife with fighters "taking a dive", likely due to boxing being a sport involving individual competitors, which makes its matches much easier to fix without getting caught. Baseball also became plagued by match fixing despite efforts by the National League to stop gambling at its games. Matters finally came to a head in 1919 when eight members of the Chicago White Sox threw the World Series (see Black Sox Scandal). In an effort to restore confidence, Major League Baseball established the office of the Commissioner of Baseball, and one of Kenesaw Mountain Landis's first acts was to ban all involved players for life.
Bookmaker Convention on the Manipulation of Sports Competitions List of match fixing incidents Match fixing in association football Match fixing in cricket List of cricketers banned for match fixing Organized crime Over–under (both teams combined score betting) Point shaving (attempts to manipulate a match score based on the point spread) Sports betting Spot-fixing (attempts to manipulate certain portions of a match) Team orders
The National Football League is fully against any sort of legalization of sports betting, strongly protesting it as to not bring corruption into the game. On the other hand, the CEO of the International Cricket Council believe sports betting, in particular in India, should be legalized to curb illegal bookies where match fixing has occurred from nontransparent bookmakers. Many of the illegal proceeds also allegedly go to fund terror, drugs and other illegal activities.
Bold team is leading the match-fixing 
On 4 August 2011, Changwon division of Supreme Prosecutors' Office revealed additional four match-fixing matches.
Also, 2011 season's two matches were related match-fixing.
The reports of the arrests of two footballers by the South Korean media had led to the exposure of the initial match-fixing scandals in the K-League. Especially, former national football team member Kim Dong-hyun, who was believed to have deep connections to accomplices. The arrested footballers were Park Sang-Wook of Daejeon Citizen and Sung Kyung-Mo of Gwangju FC.
Spot-fixing attempts to defraud bookmakers by a player taking a pre-arranged action to fix the result of that specific event. Spot-fixing differs from match fixing, in which the final result of a match is fixed; or point shaving, in which corrupt players (or officials) attempt to limit the margin of victory of the favoured team. Spot-fixing is more difficult to detect than match fixing or point shaving, and by its nature can be perpetrated by a lone fraudulent player without needing any other players or officials to co-operate. The growth of Internet gambling and increased variety of betting options ("e.g." spread betting, first-scorer betting) resulted in the emergence of spot-fixing, particularly through the first decade of the 2000s.
Spot-fixing is an illegal activity where a person involved in the game takes steps to ensure a certain result for a proposition bet. Instead of fixing an entire match, or shaving points, spot fixing can be done with as little as one player, and can involve ensuring a certain outcome on only a single play, and may be completely unrelated to the points/results in a game.
Gambling and betting on esport matches have generally been illegal in major markets. The illegality of esport gambling has created a black market related to esports and virtual currency, as these go unregulated, may encourage match-fixing by players themselves, and lead to concerns about underage gambling due to the draw of video games. One such example of this is skin gambling, where virtual items earned in games were used as a currency for users to bet on the outcome of matches.
Match fixing represents a huge potential loss for bookmakers, as well as an opportunity for money laundering. Thus commercial self-interest and community responsibility conjoin. On this basis Federbet has been successful in convincing legal authorities to crack down on match fixing. For example, in 2010 Spain made match-fixing a criminal offence. An important tool that Federbet uses is its betting database that can track the flow of bets on specific events. Unusual betting patterns highlight fixed matches. For example, a single very large bet for 50,000 euros on an event that usually has a total of around 160,000 euros bet, sets a flag. This combined with an analysis of other betting patterns on the match essentially ensures that the match is fixed.
Match fixing generally refers to fixing the final result of the game. Another form of match fixing, known as spot fixing, involves fixing small events within a match which can be gambled upon, but which are unlikely to prove decisive in determining the final result of the game.
Match fixing does not necessarily involve deliberately losing a match. Occasionally, teams have been accused of deliberately playing to a draw or a fixed score where this ensures some mutual benefit (e.g. both teams advancing to the next stage of a competition.) One of the earliest examples of this sort of match fixing in the modern era occurred in 1898 when Stoke City and Burnley intentionally drew in that year's final "test match" so as to ensure they were both in the First Division the next season. In response, the Football League expanded the divisions to 18 teams that year, thus permitting the intended victims of the fix (Newcastle United and Blackburn Rovers) to remain in the First Division. The "test match" system was abandoned and replaced with automatic relegation.
In November 2010, the 3rd-division Cremonese were drugged by their goalkeeper Marco Paoloni in a failed attempt to throw the match to the underdog Paganese. Investigation of Paolini's contacts revealed a match-fixing syndicate known as the "Zingari" ("Gypsies") with ties to organised crime in the Balkans and Eastern Europe. Italian authorities, led by the Cremonese prosecutor Roberto di Martino, subsequently established coördination and funding from a Singaporean cartel, which made millions of euros from fixing matches in the Italian Serie A and Serie B leagues. Di Martino claims evidence tying Tan directly to payoffs and illegal bets, giving him a "central role" in the scandal; he is known to have been in Italy in 2009 in the company of three "Zingari" and Choo Beng Huat, a money runner. An arrest warrant was issued by Italy in late December 2011. The lack of an extradition treaty, however, meant that Tan could only be arrested in Singapore upon local charges.
On 21 December 2007, organizers of the event announced that the tournament would be watched under the scrutiny of anti-corruption officials. A partnership was formed with Victoria Police. This announcement came in the wake of a series of scandals to hit the sport, including World No. 4 Nikolay Davydenko coming under suspicion of match fixing; with at least a dozen other players coming forward about having been approached to influence matches in an unethical manner. Tennis Australia chief executive Steve Wood commented that, "Match-fixing and illegal gambling are a threat to the integrity of sport. We're putting our policies, procedures and programme in place to protect it."
Sports betting has resulted in a number of scandals in sport, affecting the integrity of sports events through various acts including point shaving (players affecting the score by missing shots), spot-fixing (a player action is fixed), bad calls from officials at key moments, and overall match fixing (the overall result of the event is fixed). Examples include the 1919 World Series, the alleged (and later admitted) illegal gambling of former MLB player Pete Rose, and former NBA referee Tim Donaghy.For example, before game 5 of the 2012 NBA Finals, the Miami Heat were expected to beat the Oklahoma City Thunder. The line read: Miami -3, Oklahoma City +3. To determine who wins against the spread, the line is either added or subtracted from a team's final score.
On 26 February 2013, national team players Ramez Dayoub and Mahmoud El Ali were involved in the 2013 Lebanese match fixing scandal and had been accused of illegal betting on several national and continental matches concerning Lebanese teams and the national team and manipulating results. Both players received a fine of USD$15,000 and were banned for life from the Fédération Libanaise de Football Association.
Koriopolis () is the name given by the Greek press to a match fixing scandal in Greek football that came to light in June 2011. The investigation centres on offences that include illegal gambling, fraud, extortion and money laundering.
While British football has never been rocked by match fixing allegations on the scale of the Black Sox scandal (the aforementioned incidents involved league matches, not major championships), football match-fixing has become a serious problem in parts of Continental Europe.
In 1951, Taiwan introduced the Uniform Invoice lottery. Other forms of gambling like casino-style gaming, poker machines and bookmaking remain illegal. Some political figures have claimed that, as a result, illegal casinos, gaming and sports betting have thrived. In 1997, three well-known Taiwanese baseball players confessed to having fixed matches at the behest of illegal gambling syndicates.
In cricket, match fixing occurs as a match is played to a completely or partially pre-determined result, violating the rules of the game and often the law. In particular, players have been approached by bookmakers and bribed to throw matches or aspects of matches (such as the toss), or provide other essential information. Fixing has happened in both international - including Test matches and One Day Internationals - and domestic cricket. The ban is issued by the International Cricket Council (ICC), the sport's governing body, or by the respective cricket board(s) to which the player belongs. A ban may be for match fixing or spot-fixing. Both are misdemeanours banned under the ICC Cricket Code of Conduct.
Furthermore, any form of tampering with prices is illegal price fixing: "Under the Sherman Act a combination formed for the purpose and with the effect of raising, depressing, fixing, pegging, or stabilizing the price of a commodity in interstate or foreign commerce is illegal "per se"."
By monitoring the pre-match betting markets it is possible to detect planned match fixing. It is also possible to detect on-going match manipulation by looking at the in-game betting markets. Several federations have employed services that provide such systems for detecting match manipulation. In addition, several federations run integrity tours where players and officials participate in educational workshops on how match fixing work and how they are prevented.