There’s always been speculation that some sports are rigged, not just small leagues but even the big ones like the NBA, NFL, MLB, boxing, even soccer.
Every season you’ll see fans and bettors pointing to “scripted” moments, questionable referee calls, or outcomes that feel too perfect for TV ratings.
Some bettors don’t believe in this at all. For them, stats and analytics are the only way to bet, and if you crunch the numbers right, you’ll find value.
But on the other side, there are gamblers who think differently, they look for spots where a game could be rigged. Instead of analyzing every stat, they try to read the “angle” of the game. For example: a league wanting a series to go 7 games, or a star player getting a “protected” win. These bettors just follow the possible rigged side, believing it’s the easier and less energy-consuming strategy than drowning in data.
What do you think? Is betting on the “rig side” actually an effective strategy, or just an excuse when people lose using stats?
Very few games are really rigged, at least in the major leagues and involving more than one player, it simply does not make financial sense in most circumstances. Suspicious activity and betting patterns mean it's only viable a few times before the police might be alerted, but a player might be able to get away with it for 6 months or a year before bookmakers catch on. Besides that, most people spend their whole lives training to be the top of a sport and money is secondary to that pursuit, so they generally would not want to ruin their reputation. It's when desperation sets in caused by other reasons, sometimes a little bit of greed, that means their regular salary is not enough and they get enticed by people who rig the game. It's such a black market though and many stings have been performed on players by journalists that everybody would be extremely wary to engage in it.