Betting Scandals
Sports betting has always been associated with the grey areas of the law, just like any other form of gambling. During the years, many cases of betting scandals got published in the media and sports betting bad reputation was built.
Nowadays, the big online sportsbooks are 100% safe and legal and they provide hours of fun, but there were quite a few cases of money laundering or fixed results of sports events that are connected to illegal betting on sports.
Here are some of the most famous events in which gamblers and athletes conspired to fix outcome of sporting events:
- 1919, gamblers who were probably connected to the mob bribed some players of the Chicago White Sox to throw the World Series. Watch the movie "Eight Men Out" to learn more about it.
- Andres Escobar, a football player for the Colombian team was murdered shortly after he scored an own goal in the 1994 World Cup, probably by mobsters after they invested large sums of money that Colombia would win the game.
- On 10 February 1999, a plot to disable the floodlights of The Valley during a football match between Charlton and Liverpool was discovered. Three individuals were arrested, and the scam tracked to Malaysia, where the Premiership is very popular, and bets frequent
- Benny Silman, a campus bookmaker organized a point shaving scheme in 1994. the scheme involved players from the Arizona State University basketball team but was uncovered with the assistance of other bookmakers.
- The Italian Football federation announced in 2000 that it found eight players who were guilty of match-fixing in football matches of the Italian Cup.