Matchfixing is a very serious offence and accusations of matchfixing should not be made lightly. Please avoid making accusations against specific individuals unless you have substantial proof, or until further information is released. (0620 KST)
Anyway, for some reason you seem to think that Pinnaclesport is this small little bookmaker that is interested in maximizing short-term earnings at the expense of cheating its customers. From my knowledge of the betting industry, I always perceived Pinnaclesports as the largest (western) bookmaker in the world (I could be wrong here though). But regardless, a loss of a couple of thousands dollar is almost irrelevant relative to its total size.
San earned $67,735.26 in 2014. We know Parting had $80,000 for 10 months contract back in 2014 with SKT. Let's just assume San's salary at Yoe is less than half of Parting. (Educated guess) $40k a year good enough? That puts San roughly at 6 figure or more, not considering other sponsor or advert deals.
And no, I don't think this charade only for Pinnacle to cut their losses with no prove accusations.
Try to look at the bigger picture, esport has started to gain a lot more attention from outside world. With 70 million viewership in 2013 it's a huge untapped market, especially in betting. Pinnacle get the most benefit with this news posted on all social medias. Publicity, new customers is what they are after.
For example already a number of people asking how things work with new users with 0 post answering questions.
$40k a year good enough? That puts San roughly at 6 figure or more, not considering other sponsor or advert deals.
I think salaries today are way less than $40K for the average PL player. Parting was offered that salary at the time when it wasn't known how big Sc2 would be in Korea (after Kespa switched over). With some korean players switching to unknown European teams, it just indicates that salaries are really low for PL players today. Moreover, his past tournament earnings aren't particularly relevant giving that you need to look at future earnings instead. Since the tournament scene is declining, it's extremely unlikely that he will earn anywhere close to that amount in the future.
Try to look at the bigger picture, esport has started to gain a lot more attention from outside world. With 70 million viewership in 2013 it's a huge untapped market, especially in betting. Pinnacle get the most benefit with this news posted on all social medias. Publicity, new customers is what they are after.
For example already a number of people asking how things work with new users with 0 post answering questions.
Wait are you actually implying that a well-respected company would cancel a bet for marketing purposes in an industry which is declining (Sc2) with the outcome being that a lot of people end up perceivining Pinnacle is shady.
Nice conspirary you got there. If Pinnacle wanted to gain more esport-users, it would make more sense to "scam" the CS GO, LOL or Dota market instead since there are potentital users to benefit from.
On January 21 2015 18:56 Subversive wrote: So, a betting site thinks it's suspicious that bets go heavily in favour of one player. They allow the bets to stand. If Dark loses, they make serious bank. He wins, so they void all bets. I'm pretty sure the only fraud here is the betting site not paying bets it accepted. If I'd wagered any substantial amount of money I'd be looking to sue them.
but hope you will appreciate that protecting the integrity of eSports is of paramount importance.
And by integrity of esports we mean protecting our own money.
PInnacle takes $150000 dollar bets on big sports all the time, the money they stand to lose on this is pennies to them as max bet is only $500 for esports. They are actually protecting the customers that thought san was a good bet due to the odds being messed up from who ever had inside information on dark.
I'm always dubious when someone makes a new account to respond to one comment in a thread with over 500 replies.
If someone bets on San thinking he's a five-to-one dog against Dark because of distorted odds, that's their problem. A bookmaker not paying bets is a bigger one.
Voiding bets means you get your money back. You don't win, but you also don't lose. It costs Pinnacle money and potentially reputation to do this, so the loser is Pinnacle. A bookmaker not paying bets when there is a hint that there may be something dodgy going on is standard practice and good for the consumer because it protects them from manipulation to fix the bet.
Of course you lose. If I bet on x for $100 dollars, and I win and only get my $100 I have lost. Because I risked the money for no gain. What you said makes zero sense. It costs Pinnacle no money whatsoever, unless they were set to pay out more for San winning.
As far as I'm concerned you honour the bet. Anything else is absolute bullshit.
Anyway, for some reason you seem to think that Pinnaclesport is this small little bookmaker that is interested in maximizing short-term earnings at the expense of cheating its customers. From my knowledge of the betting industry, I always perceived Pinnaclesports as the largest (western) bookmaker in the world (I could be wrong here though). But regardless, a loss of a couple of thousands dollar is almost irrelevant relative to its total size.
San earned $67,735.26 in 2014. We know Parting had $80,000 for 10 months contract back in 2014 with SKT. Let's just assume San's salary at Yoe is less than half of Parting. (Educated guess) $40k a year good enough? That puts San roughly at 6 figure or more, not considering other sponsor or advert deals.
And no, I don't think this charade only for Pinnacle to cut their losses with no prove accusations.
Try to look at the bigger picture, esport has started to gain a lot more attention from outside world. With 70 million viewership in 2013 it's a huge untapped market, especially in betting. Pinnacle get the most benefit with this news posted on all social medias. Publicity, new customers is what they are after.
For example already a number of people asking how things work with new users with 0 post answering questions.
Pinnacle had no loses they could cut. Pinnacle earns money allways. Thats how betting works, because of the quota, they allways make money. Even in this case, no where long time seen shift of the line to 5:1 for dark (what is never something that can be achieved with a Bo1 between 2 koreans, even TangTang vs Innovation would have not reached 4:1) The line shifts with bets so they still make money. The only way Pinnacle loses money from a bet is due to call it void, so they have to refund to all.
Pinnacle is the largest betting side and also the largest one for esports. To accuse them when you could watch live how the betting has been rigged to a point, where you can say someone knew alot more about this match then all other betting people, is just not right.
Saying San earned so match that he cannot do such things, is like saying he had done such things. Both is just not proven. Matchfixing in sports, cheating in offlineevents in esport, insidetraiding at stoxx exchange. These are things that happen and not only be the small fishes. How much someone earns isnt anything to concidere here.
From a perspectiv of a better, this betting has been manipulated, someone knew more then others, else there could never be a 5:1 in a Bo1 between Dark and San. Who is involved, who is not, this is seriously hard to say and shouldnt just spread out.
On January 21 2015 21:56 Hider wrote: Wait are you actually implying that a well-respected company would cancel a bet with fair odds for marketing purposes to a market that is in decline (the sc2 market) with the outcome being that a lot of people end up thinking Pinnacle scammed them....
Nice conspirary you got there. Would probably be better for Pinnacle to "scam" the CS GO, LOL or Dota market instead.
First off, I definitely don't think Pinnacle is trying to scam here. Even so, I don't really get your reasoning. Pinnacle's said just a couple of months ago that SC2 is still the esport that they receive the most bets on. Also, I think it's actually better to scam in a market that is in decline since you ending up with a bad reputation will matter less in the future.
On January 21 2015 21:56 Hider wrote: Wait are you actually implying that a well-respected company would cancel a bet with fair odds for marketing purposes to a market that is in decline (the sc2 market) with the outcome being that a lot of people end up thinking Pinnacle scammed them....
Nice conspirary you got there. Would probably be better for Pinnacle to "scam" the CS GO, LOL or Dota market instead.
First off, I definitely don't think Pinnacle is trying to scam here. Even so, I don't really get your reasoning. Pinnacle's said just a couple of months ago that SC2 is still the largest esport that they take bets on. Also, I think it's actually better to scam in a market that is in decline since you ending up with a bad reputation will matter less in the future.
Yes, I read that, and that's exactly why it wouldn't make sense to increase the "marketing towards Sc2. Sc2 has by far the highest ratio of bettors-to-viewers. Those, it is (relatively) the most saturated market. Instead, Pinnacle could benefit a lot from increasing its marketing towards LOL, CS GO or Dota since these markets are much less saturated (and those have alot more potential when you take the size of those industries into account).
Also, I think it's actually better to scam in a market that is in decline since you ending up with a bad reputation will matter less in the future.
Well if your scamming your weighting the potential benefits against the costs if it get caught. The benefits here are limited to the fan-group of Starcraft. LOL players (that doens't watch Sc2) isn't suddenly gonna bet on Starcraft because they hear of this scan.
Above was an example of a very upvoted post in the Dota-subreddit from a LOL player that was scammed. So basically if they "scam" the Sc2-market, the reward is very small, but they risk their reputation in the entire esports-industry if they get caught, and it's defnitely not positive for their general reputation as well.
This is simply the most ridiclous conspiracy theory I have seen yet. Especailly since it was a user on 2+2 who had been betting on Sc2 for a long time and previously had been arguing against matchfixing occuring in PL (read the 2+2 thread for refference), that made Pinnacle aware of the issue.
EDIT: And I already forgot that it's probably not healthy marketing to tell its potential customers that the industry is being plagued by matchfixing.... Doesn't seem like the best possible marketing.
On January 21 2015 18:56 Subversive wrote: So, a betting site thinks it's suspicious that bets go heavily in favour of one player. They allow the bets to stand. If Dark loses, they make serious bank. He wins, so they void all bets. I'm pretty sure the only fraud here is the betting site not paying bets it accepted. If I'd wagered any substantial amount of money I'd be looking to sue them.
but hope you will appreciate that protecting the integrity of eSports is of paramount importance.
And by integrity of esports we mean protecting our own money.
PInnacle takes $150000 dollar bets on big sports all the time, the money they stand to lose on this is pennies to them as max bet is only $500 for esports. They are actually protecting the customers that thought san was a good bet due to the odds being messed up from who ever had inside information on dark.
I'm always dubious when someone makes a new account to respond to one comment in a thread with over 500 replies.
If someone bets on San thinking he's a five-to-one dog against Dark because of distorted odds, that's their problem. A bookmaker not paying bets is a bigger one.
Voiding bets means you get your money back. You don't win, but you also don't lose. It costs Pinnacle money and potentially reputation to do this, so the loser is Pinnacle. A bookmaker not paying bets when there is a hint that there may be something dodgy going on is standard practice and good for the consumer because it protects them from manipulation to fix the bet.
Of course you lose. If I bet on x for $100 dollars, and I win and only get my $100 I have lost. Because I risked the money for no gain. What you said makes zero sense. It costs Pinnacle no money whatsoever, unless they were set to pay out more for San winning.
As far as I'm concerned you honour the bet. Anything else is absolute bullshit.
You have no idea what you're talking about and yet you keep posting, and it gets really annoying. As it was stated like a million times already, Pinnacle has nothing to gain by doing this. Nothing. And before answering, please reread the posts you obviously haven't read about Pinnacle, because they all explain why you're wrong. So please, stop spreading bullshit.
Anyway, Pinnacle never said anything about the game that was played, just about the bets that were made, so there's no reason whatsoever to doubt San (or Dark, or one's team's coach). And as far as we know, we just know that the betting pattern was fishy, like really fishy, which indicates nothing about the game. So stop doubting the players as we have zero intell about what was really going on, and just wait instead of spreading nonsense (be it about the players or about Pinnacle).
It would be cool if we could get a mod note detailing basic information about Pinnacle and how esports betting works. It feels like every page is derailed by people coming in and making the same knee-jerk reactions which then get refuted over and over again.
On a different note, it seems pretty clear that Kespa, seeing the amount of drama the foreign scene has produced in the last few weeks, though to themselves, "Foreigners think they are better at drama than Koreans? We'll show them drama!" And then forced San to throw the match to cement their place at the top of both the SC2 pro scene and the drama scene. It's safe to say that all the drama we've experienced up until now has been a farce.
On January 21 2015 22:12 The_Red_Viper wrote: So odds like that never happen in betting?
I have never seen odds in korean SC II of 5:1. I cannot remember any match that had these odds. And especially in Bo1, where the odds are closer then in all other type of games because of the nature of SC II build order wins.
On January 21 2015 22:12 The_Red_Viper wrote: So odds like that never happen in betting?
I have never seen odds in korean SC II of 5:1. I cannot remember any match that had these odds. And especially in Bo1, where the odds are closer then in all other type of games because of the nature of SC II build order wins.
Oh, this has definitely happened in Sc2... Just never in PL.
Large companies can be wrong and can make mistakes. If we're using Bill Gates as an example, you just need to look at the trail of government anti-trust cases against Microsoft to know that even the largest and most "reputable" companies are not always in the right.
Pinnacle doesn't run an anti-fraud / anti-corruption department out of the benevolence of their heart. They are 100% doing it to make/save them money. Whether from directly thwarting fraud, raising the barrier to entry for fraudsters, or to protect their brand.
Wait, are you comparing Microsoft's anti-trust case to this? Microsoft MV is hugely correlated to its position as a monopoly. On the other hand, Pinnaclesports marketvalue is not related to a single bet.
You gotta look at incentives here. Large companies needs large monetary incentives, while people with low future expected salaries benefit more from a couple of thousands dollars. The concept "matchfixing" is definitely not something that benefits bookmakers as its customers are more interested in betting in fair markets.
On January 21 2015 22:12 The_Red_Viper wrote: So odds like that never happen in betting?
The odds themselves don't mean anything. If Brazil plays against Monaco in football (soccer), odds are even more in favor of Brazil than 4:1. But if during betting the odds would start to change rapidly and would reach 1:1 somehow, there is no other explanation than matchfixing. (1:1 an exaggerated example of course and football is a different market, just pointing out the anomaly)
On January 21 2015 22:12 The_Red_Viper wrote: So odds like that never happen in betting?
The odds themselves don't mean anything. If Brazil plays against Monaco in football (soccer), odds are even more in favor of Brazil than 1:4. But if during betting the odds would start to change rapidly and would reach 1:1 somehow, there is no other explanation than matchfixing. (1:1 an exaggerated example of course and football is a different market, just pointing out the anomaly)
Yeah i understand that, the change is important. Do you actually see the starting odds when betting on these matches? Or just the current ones?
So i am kinda asking if this couldn't be an anomaly which was created by people thinking Dark is the clear favorite cause of the current odds at this point (i guess not though^^)
On January 21 2015 22:12 The_Red_Viper wrote: So odds like that never happen in betting?
The odds themselves don't mean anything. If Brazil plays against Monaco in football (soccer), odds are even more in favor of Brazil than 1:4. But if during betting the odds would start to change rapidly and would reach 1:1 somehow, there is no other explanation than matchfixing. (1:1 an exaggerated example of course and football is a different market, just pointing out the anomaly)
Yeah i understand that, the change is important. Do you actually see the starting odds when betting on these matches? Or just the current ones?
There are sites where you can check odds history. Dark started about 1.6 and went down to 1.2 before pinnacle stopped taking bets on the game.
On January 21 2015 22:12 The_Red_Viper wrote: So odds like that never happen in betting?
The odds themselves don't mean anything. If Brazil plays against Monaco in football (soccer), odds are even more in favor of Brazil than 1:4. But if during betting the odds would start to change rapidly and would reach 1:1 somehow, there is no other explanation than matchfixing. (1:1 an exaggerated example of course and football is a different market, just pointing out the anomaly)
Yeah i understand that, the change is important. Do you actually see the starting odds when betting on these matches? Or just the current ones?
So i am kinda asking if this couldn't be an anomaly which was created by people thinking Dark is the clear favorite cause of the current odds at this point (i guess not though^^)
The odds themselves don't mean anything. If Brazil plays against Monaco in football (soccer), odds are even more in favor of Brazil than 4:1. But if during betting the odds would start to change rapidly and would reach 1:1 somehow, there is no other explanation than matchfixing. (1:1 an exaggerated example of course and football is a different market, just pointing out the anomaly)
In this case, it's like if two pretty strong teams meet each other, where the one team is a bit stronger than the other one. Then you probably make the stronger team a small'ish favourite, like 1.6. Maybe that line isn't completely correct and it could change to 1.5 or 1.8, but when it suddenly goes down to 1.2, and thus indicates an 80% probability of winning, you know something is wrong.
On January 21 2015 22:12 The_Red_Viper wrote: So odds like that never happen in betting?
i don't know what you're referring to here, but it's not the actual odds that matter, it's more the movement of the odds. the actual odds themselves shouldn't happen - sc2 at proleague level is between closely matched opponents with minimal map imbalance, so someone ending up a 3-1 favourite in a 1 map match is ridiculous. you'll never see something like, say, a broodwar match between jaedong and reality on dreamliner - there isn't that disparity between players, there isn't that kind of map imbalance (which, because it's proleague, is reduced even further as you just don't use terrans on bad maps for terran, for example), and it's a one map match, which further shoves variance through the roof.
looking through the movement of the san/dark match (from swoopae's posts on my main forum [edit - Hider linked to the thread directly above]), it opened at san +150 (for non-betting types, that basically puts dark as about a 60% favourite), and finished up with san at over +300 on occasions (which equates to dark being a 75% favourite). there's only three ways that this can happen on a massive book like pinnacle where it requires substantial money (their max bet is supposedly over 1k) in one direction to move lines:
- there's a horrendously bad sports bettor/bettors who thinks dark is the greatest bet of all time, and is willing to put perhaps tens of thousands of dollars on dark to win at increasingly unfavourable odds. possible, but seems unlikely.
- san was actually injured/playing well below par, and insiders used said information to bet at a line they know to be hugely off. this is certainly possible, although if he is playing that badly to make some of the mistakes that he supposedly made in the game (i haven't watched it, nor have played in the past couple of years to identify how bad he supposedly was), one has to question why he was even in the lineup to start with.
- san agreed to throw the game.
that's pretty much it. as i say, i haven't seen the game, and i'm not making any accusations. i would however be very surprised if there isn't something wrong with this game.
On January 21 2015 23:05 The_Red_Viper wrote: wait if dark started at 1.6, does this mean san was actually the favorite?
It means that if you invest USD 100 on Dark, you get back USD 160, which is equal to a net profit of USD 60. Thus, he needs to win more than 50% of the time for you to break even on the investment (so Dark is the favourite).
To be more specific, he needs to win: 1/1.6 = 62.5% of the time. It's also worth noting that the odds went up to 1.8, and if you had some inside information - like San being at the hospital/not training well, it would make a lot of sense to bet on Dark at that point in time. Though I still question how odds could drop that far.
EPT
