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PerspectivesSports Businessthat examine a player’s strengths and progressover time and work is ongoing in these sports.Rick Parry speaks at the opening of the CentreFighting corruption and match fixingAn area of growing interested is detecting andpreventing match fixing. One of the Centre’sresearchers is heavily involved with a Qatarbasedorganisation called the InternationalCentre for Sports Security. Qatar, havingrecently won the rights to host the World Cup,is serious about preventing corruption in sport.It’s not easy to spot a fixed match but oneapproach is to use models of match outcomesbased on what is going on in the match,and compare the predicted match outcomeswith betting market activity. The point is thatwhen a match is fixed, somebody somewhereputs a lot of money on a particular outcomethat the crooked better knows is more likelyto happen than the prediction model. Whenthis happens, bookmakers move the oddsto protect themselves. So, if you watch theodds, and know the probabilities inferredby the model, which is based only on what’sgoing on in the match, then it should bepossible to flag up an event that doesn’tring true, possibly by a large volume ofabnormal betting caused by dishonest insiderknowledge. This is not pointing the finger atbookies, rather highlighting red flag eventsrevealed by their reacting to betting levels.From there, depending on the circumstancesand the level of suspicion, a report to footballgoverning bodies such as UEFA or FIFA couldbe generated.That’s the analytical approach, but the Centreis also looking at other aspects of match fixing.The basic economics of crime say a player willchoose to commit a crime if it’s worth his while.In a sport like football it’s generally not worthit for a Premier League striker to fix a match.He’s paid very well, has excellent sponsorshipand would risk losing a fortune.On the otherhand, referees are not paid very much, so froman economic point of view, a referee could beoffered a ‘realistic’ amount of money and hemight start thinking about cheating.It’s not just football, other sports can beeven more vulnerable to match fixing.For example, in snooker some top players arenot paid a great deal of money.The first prize in an international snookercompetition is just a week’s wage for a topPremier League footballer. Couple that withthe enormous amounts of money involved inbetting on snooker in the Far East and the risksare serious. Last, but not least, it’s not difficultto hide cheating in snooker – a player just hasan ‘off day’.Analysing which sports and what formcorruption can take is an important aspectof the Centre’s research.Good analysis needs awhole season before it canstart to see what is reallyhappening.12 | May 2013