On August 25 2020 09:49 justinpal wrote: I kind of wish Korea would have embraced gambling back in the day. If the profits were being pumped into tournaments and the players, they wouldn't be fixing matches, just playing great StarCraft. Gambling can ruin lives but for many it's way to win/lose beer money while watching a sport. Besides, gambling addicts are always going to find a way.
Even if gambling were legal in Korea, I'm pretty sure GSL wouldn't want to be associated with it, especially after matchfixing schemes came close to destroying BW and SC2.
On July 21 2020 14:13 elluel wrote: imreallydissapointedthishappened.neverhtoughtzestwouldbetheonetodothis.unforutnatelymyspacebarbrokeaswellsoican'ttypespaces
[E Sports] [StarCraft 2 - Dreamhack Masters Europe] [Match] Couguar vs SouLeer has been cancelled due to the following reason: [Abnormal and suspicious betting activity has been detected for this event. All wagers from all customers have been cancelled. This action is taken very rarely and is for the protection of all our customers.] . Your bet with ticket-ID: 1162307054 has been refunded. If this game was part of a parlay, please be aware that the parlay will be reduced and recalculated. Thank you!
On August 25 2020 09:49 justinpal wrote: I kind of wish Korea would have embraced gambling back in the day. If the profits were being pumped into tournaments and the players, they wouldn't be fixing matches, just playing great StarCraft. Gambling can ruin lives but for many it's way to win/lose beer money while watching a sport. Besides, gambling addicts are always going to find a way.
Even if gambling were legal in Korea, I'm pretty sure GSL wouldn't want to be associated with it, especially after matchfixing schemes came close to destroying BW and SC2.
That was his original point, if they could have embraced gambling from the beginning there wouldn't be matchfixing scandals if the money was being pumped back into the scene. Sure some players would still matchfix but it would be as big of an issue if the money was "clean" and put back into the scene.
[E Sports] [StarCraft 2 - Dreamhack Masters Europe] [Match] Couguar vs SouLeer has been cancelled due to the following reason: [Abnormal and suspicious betting activity has been detected for this event. All wagers from all customers have been cancelled. This action is taken very rarely and is for the protection of all our customers.] . Your bet with ticket-ID: 1162307054 has been refunded. If this game was part of a parlay, please be aware that the parlay will be reduced and recalculated. Thank you!
Another one.
This seems silly, wouldn't you agree? This is the kind of "fix" that convinces me not to assume match fixing every time a bet is voided.
On August 25 2020 09:49 justinpal wrote: I kind of wish Korea would have embraced gambling back in the day. If the profits were being pumped into tournaments and the players, they wouldn't be fixing matches, just playing great StarCraft. Gambling can ruin lives but for many it's way to win/lose beer money while watching a sport. Besides, gambling addicts are always going to find a way.
Even if gambling were legal in Korea, I'm pretty sure GSL wouldn't want to be associated with it, especially after matchfixing schemes came close to destroying BW and SC2.
That was his original point, if they could have embraced gambling from the beginning there wouldn't be matchfixing scandals if the money was being pumped back into the scene. Sure some players would still matchfix but it would be as big of an issue if the money was "clean" and put back into the scene.
Savior would have organized match fixing regardless and thats what disincentivized major sponsorships. it was about as main stream as it could be with big companies sponsoring (skt, kt, samsung, cj, shinhan bank) and matchfixing ruined the leagues image. The image would be ruined regardless of whether the gambling was legal or not
I think you guys need to be suspicious of Pinnacle as well. They are purely profit minded and will use matchfixing as a reason to void matches they might lose money on. Definitely matchfixing does exist but only a subset of voided matches are fixed, the rest are Pinnacle trying to pull a fast one.
Pinnacle is a market maker. They make money off the bid-ask spread, hence their best case scenario is when people bet on both sides with equal volume (pay-out weighted), then they make money regardless of which side wins. If there is more volume on one side, then Pinnacle's algorithm will adjust the odds accordingly to reflect that.
However, being a market maker is not totally risk-free, especially when there is high volatility. The only scenario where a market maker for betting markets is exposed to risk is when there is a sudden change in prices, i.e. there is sudden heavy betting on one side. Pinnacle claim to be voiding these matches in public-interest because they might be fixed, but it's actually purely in self-interest to minimize the risk involved where they could lose a lot of money if one party wins.
Betting markets are not properly regulated and they can take advantage of consumers. It's the same as trading financial products with a bucket shop, versus on a regulated exchange.
On August 25 2020 09:49 justinpal wrote: I kind of wish Korea would have embraced gambling back in the day. If the profits were being pumped into tournaments and the players, they wouldn't be fixing matches, just playing great StarCraft. Gambling can ruin lives but for many it's way to win/lose beer money while watching a sport. Besides, gambling addicts are always going to find a way.
Even if gambling were legal in Korea, I'm pretty sure GSL wouldn't want to be associated with it, especially after matchfixing schemes came close to destroying BW and SC2.
That was his original point, if they could have embraced gambling from the beginning there wouldn't be matchfixing scandals if the money was being pumped back into the scene. Sure some players would still matchfix but it would be as big of an issue if the money was "clean" and put back into the scene.
Savior would have organized match fixing regardless and thats what disincentivized major sponsorships. it was about as main stream as it could be with big companies sponsoring (skt, kt, samsung, cj, shinhan bank) and matchfixing ruined the leagues image. The image would be ruined regardless of whether the gambling was legal or not
Agreed. Not an absolute expert on worldwide sports, I can recall a higher number of bans in professional snooker for match fixing than I can from any other sport off hand. It’s in a sweet spot in that money in it is decent but not crazy if you’re not one of the top guys, and gambling sponsorship has been heavily courted over the years. Its growth audience is out in China too, so a few parallels with the SC scene I guess.
Legitimate gambling being embedded and pushed ramps up the amount of gambling money being on the line, so there’s more incentive to approach people for throws. Not to mention it’s easier to make an approach if you’re working for a sponsor of the league, you get some degree of access say shady illegal gambling types have to work to establish.
Aside from a personal qualm pushing gambling at such a youthful demographic, I imagine there’s some problems practically that would pop up. Gambling not being legal everywhere for example.
On September 17 2020 09:10 Pangpootata wrote: I think you guys need to be suspicious of Pinnacle as well. They are purely profit minded and will use matchfixing as a reason to void matches they might lose money on. Definitely matchfixing does exist but only a subset of voided matches are fixed, the rest are Pinnacle trying to pull a fast one.
Pinnacle is a market maker. They make money off the bid-ask spread, hence their best case scenario is when people bet on both sides with equal volume (pay-out weighted), then they make money regardless of which side wins. If there is more volume on one side, then Pinnacle's algorithm will adjust the odds accordingly to reflect that.
However, being a market maker is not totally risk-free, especially when there is high volatility. The only scenario where a market maker for betting markets is exposed to risk is when there is a sudden change in prices, i.e. there is sudden heavy betting on one side. Pinnacle claim to be voiding these matches in public-interest because they might be fixed, but it's actually purely in self-interest to minimize the risk involved where they could lose a lot of money if one party wins.
Betting markets are not properly regulated and they can take advantage of consumers. It's the same as trading financial products with a bucket shop, versus on a regulated exchange.
I don't agree with this. I tail Chinese soccer, NBA, Russian hockey, CS:GO, LoL, etc. I've have no bets voided aside from SC2 bets. With best of 3 matches in CS:GO, sometimes it's quite obvious the line shifted and there's heavy money on say EG to win map 2 because it's their map pick. Pinnacle doesn't void these bets, and the amount of money they stand to lose is far greater than anyone match in SC2.
For what it's worth, I haven't had any bets voided since my last post. Maybe it's because I didn't bet on some of the matches, but I think I saw some Zest games available to bet.
On September 17 2020 09:10 Pangpootata wrote: I think you guys need to be suspicious of Pinnacle as well. They are purely profit minded and will use matchfixing as a reason to void matches they might lose money on. Definitely matchfixing does exist but only a subset of voided matches are fixed, the rest are Pinnacle trying to pull a fast one.
Pinnacle is a market maker. They make money off the bid-ask spread, hence their best case scenario is when people bet on both sides with equal volume (pay-out weighted), then they make money regardless of which side wins. If there is more volume on one side, then Pinnacle's algorithm will adjust the odds accordingly to reflect that.
However, being a market maker is not totally risk-free, especially when there is high volatility. The only scenario where a market maker for betting markets is exposed to risk is when there is a sudden change in prices, i.e. there is sudden heavy betting on one side. Pinnacle claim to be voiding these matches in public-interest because they might be fixed, but it's actually purely in self-interest to minimize the risk involved where they could lose a lot of money if one party wins.
Betting markets are not properly regulated and they can take advantage of consumers. It's the same as trading financial products with a bucket shop, versus on a regulated exchange.
It could be possible that that is low volume of bets for some matches and hence a disproportionately large bet could cause a large line swing and hence it is picked up by Pinnacle's algorithm. This large bet could be due to to the better having inside knowledge (e.g. they knew that a player is hungover for instance). You could argue that Pinnacle is being a little shady to void bets for these reasons.
On September 17 2020 09:10 Pangpootata wrote: I think you guys need to be suspicious of Pinnacle as well. They are purely profit minded and will use matchfixing as a reason to void matches they might lose money on. Definitely matchfixing does exist but only a subset of voided matches are fixed, the rest are Pinnacle trying to pull a fast one.
Pinnacle is a market maker. They make money off the bid-ask spread, hence their best case scenario is when people bet on both sides with equal volume (pay-out weighted), then they make money regardless of which side wins. If there is more volume on one side, then Pinnacle's algorithm will adjust the odds accordingly to reflect that.
However, being a market maker is not totally risk-free, especially when there is high volatility. The only scenario where a market maker for betting markets is exposed to risk is when there is a sudden change in prices, i.e. there is sudden heavy betting on one side. Pinnacle claim to be voiding these matches in public-interest because they might be fixed, but it's actually purely in self-interest to minimize the risk involved where they could lose a lot of money if one party wins.
Betting markets are not properly regulated and they can take advantage of consumers. It's the same as trading financial products with a bucket shop, versus on a regulated exchange.
It could be possible that that is low volume of bets for some matches and hence a disproportionately large bet could cause a large line swing and hence it is picked up by Pinnacle's algorithm. This large bet could be due to to the better having inside knowledge (e.g. they knew that a player is hungover for instance). You could argue that Pinnacle is being a little shady to void bets for these reasons.
Well what is a "disproportionatly large bet", I am sure Pinnacle knows very well what is normal for starcraft matches and if matchfixing is going on you can be sure its not one bettor going in with one crazy huge bet. That waaay too obvious, instead what would happen is that multiple bettors will go in and bet a large sum of money but not outrageous. Pinnacle surely looks at the line but also the factors behind it.
The people saying Pinnacle is shady has no idea what they are talking about, Pinnacle rarely voids bets in any other sport and the money at stake in sc2 matches is peanuts for that company. Why be shady and risk the whole companies trust for a tiny amount of money, no company would do that its just sutpid, its only risk no gain.
Starcraft is easy to rig, hard to prove matchfixing and its players aren't making bank playing the game normally. Its ripe for matchfixing, you can believe whatever you want but the argument that Pinnacle would be voiding bets to earn some cents here and there is the wrong approach.
On September 17 2020 09:10 Pangpootata wrote: I think you guys need to be suspicious of Pinnacle as well. They are purely profit minded and will use matchfixing as a reason to void matches they might lose money on. Definitely matchfixing does exist but only a subset of voided matches are fixed, the rest are Pinnacle trying to pull a fast one.
Pinnacle is a market maker. They make money off the bid-ask spread, hence their best case scenario is when people bet on both sides with equal volume (pay-out weighted), then they make money regardless of which side wins. If there is more volume on one side, then Pinnacle's algorithm will adjust the odds accordingly to reflect that.
However, being a market maker is not totally risk-free, especially when there is high volatility. The only scenario where a market maker for betting markets is exposed to risk is when there is a sudden change in prices, i.e. there is sudden heavy betting on one side. Pinnacle claim to be voiding these matches in public-interest because they might be fixed, but it's actually purely in self-interest to minimize the risk involved where they could lose a lot of money if one party wins.
Betting markets are not properly regulated and they can take advantage of consumers. It's the same as trading financial products with a bucket shop, versus on a regulated exchange.
It could be possible that that is low volume of bets for some matches and hence a disproportionately large bet could cause a large line swing and hence it is picked up by Pinnacle's algorithm. This large bet could be due to to the better having inside knowledge (e.g. they knew that a player is hungover for instance). You could argue that Pinnacle is being a little shady to void bets for these reasons.
Well what is a "disproportionatly large bet", I am sure Pinnacle knows very well what is normal for starcraft matches and if matchfixing is going on you can be sure its not one bettor going in with one crazy huge bet. That waaay too obvious, instead what would happen is that multiple bettors will go in and bet a large sum of money but not outrageous. Pinnacle surely looks at the line but also the factors behind it.
The people saying Pinnacle is shady has no idea what they are talking about, Pinnacle rarely voids bets in any other sport and the money at stake in sc2 matches is peanuts for that company. Why be shady and risk the whole companies trust for a tiny amount of money, no company would do that its just sutpid, its only risk no gain.
Starcraft is easy to rig, hard to prove matchfixing and its players aren't making bank playing the game normally. Its ripe for matchfixing, you can believe whatever you want but the argument that Pinnacle would be voiding bets to earn some cents here and there is the wrong approach.
Don't forget bet limits are low on SC2 too. For example, Clem vs Special bet limits are all triple digits. No matter what bet I choose, I can't bet more than $1k on it at each time.
I'd argue CS:GO is easier to match fix. It's so apparent in ESEA MDL. Over/under rounds are easy to fix in CS:GO as are best of series.For example, there was a best of 5 series last month involving Sprout and AGO. Sprout had a 1-0 lead going into the series because they were in the winners bracket. Sprout ML odds were about 1.2. Look how that turned out. Best part is after that series, Sprout started playing like they normally do again while AGO was losing matches you expect them to lose.
On September 25 2020 14:28 elluel wrote: so i guess nothing came of this? what if life's incident wasn't actually what it was?
Nothing came out of what? I think you should read the liquidpedia article about the matchfixing scandal because you don't seem to understand what happened. Several players have had bets voided by pinnacle without being charged for matchfixing, voided bets are not even part of the reason the dirty zerg got sentenced so what does this have to do with him?
Tilting the way that most sc2 fans a priori defend these players. If you had any objectivity at all you'd be questioning these players. it's us that support them with subscriptions and tuning into matches. Nobody in the community is willing to speak up and say "Zest is suspicious as fuck and he should be investigated" or "Why haven't players that were involved in the last matchfixing scandal been investigated?" (MKP, Innovation, etc.)
It's a case of when not if there's another betting scandal and honestly I think it's the biggest threat to SC's future. Blizzard will want to distance themselves if it happens again. There's such a disconnect between those that say they care about SC2 but won't even bother to think about the implications of these voided bets.
As mentioned - no, this is not a regular occurence; no, it is not really in Pinnacle's interest to void bets (it's awful PR); no, this is not usually a false positive.
EPT
